A Man of Misunderstandings
by iscariot
Summary: A bored Jayne is not a happy Jayne, although sometimes a surprsing Jayne
1. Chapter 1

_So, here I am doing everything in my power to avoid working on my other fics._

_…and I kinda like Firefly._

_If there is one thing I have noticed about Firefly writing is that it appears to be unusually well written and highly developed – I hope this meets the standard set by others._

_I'm not sure if I want to carry this on as a full-blown story idea, but please tell me if you would like me to._

_Please read and review._

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_What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All  
that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome._  
**Friedrich Nietzsche**, **_The Antichrist, section 2_**

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_What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving  
how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!_  
**William Shakespeare**, **_"Hamlet", Act 2 scene 2_**

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Jayne Cobb, mercenary, sometime outlaw, purveyor of quality firearms and all-around badass – if you believed his self-styled publicity – was bored. His guns had all been cleaned, multiple times, then stripped and re-cleaned again. Out of frustration he'd even tidied his cabin which, when your possessions, other than a wealth of armaments, amounted to little more than a few changes of clothes and the odd poster of the latest in a line of buxom, scantily-clad models, cleaning didn't take very long at all.

So, he sat. Bored. He contemplated cleaning his guns again, but despite his passion for, what he sometimes considered to be, his friends, even Jayne baulked at repeating things a third time, he wasn't 'that' bored. Anyway, it wasn't likely that he'd get to use them anytime soon seeing as Mal had them on a damn milk run shipping a bunch of seeds from one no-account pothole to another no-account pothole in some backwater part of the spiral arm that appeared to be inhabited solely by folks running from either the Alliance, angry fathers-in-law or folk with rotten teeth. In any one of these eventualities it made the area neither interesting nor particularly palatable. There wasn't even, much to Jayne's disgust, a decent whore-house in the area, with what passed for comforts-of-the-flesh serviced solely by a snaggle-toothed collection of atrocities only nominally female and more than likely to give a troll fits instead of some measure of release; but such was life in the wastelands. Privately, Jayne had developed a theory that the Core Worlds were surreptitiously exporting all the ugly people to the frontier as part of a system-wide beautification project. Thinking and voicing such things were two different scenarios entirely, and the last thing Jayne wanted or needed was an ill-informed lecture from the Shepherd or a snooty dismissal from Inara or, for that matter, that pantywaist doctor. To Jayne's way of thinking, it wasn't that he cared what they thought of him, it was just that he couldn't shoot them when they expressed said thoughts; made confrontations awfully one-sided and he didn't want to run the risk of Mal spacing him; being trapped in the airlock just the once was an experience he had no desire to repeat.

Bored.

Maybe he'd go and lift weights. Of course, if he did that, he'd have to put up with the doctor's lunatic sister watching him with a gaze more appropriate to a ravening bird of prey than a young female; frankly, she made him feel like a piece of meat - piece of meat that is in the sense of a raw, bloody steak, not a male model posed for maximum feminine adulation. Now there was a laugh, thought Jayne bitterly, all people saw him as was a hired gun, tame muscle, a pet ape used by his betters solely for keeping others in line; sure, he had respect, but when you're honest with yourself what is respect earnt at the end of a gun really worth?

Still bored.

If things got really desperate, he thought, he could always write his mother a letter; god alone knew she nagged him constantly to write whenever he heard from her. He'd thought about asking Mal if they could avoid Persephone for a while, if only to avoid the latest in a long line of missives advising him of his shortcomings and demanding to know when he was going to stop screwing around in the black and return home to look after the farm.

Joy.

Jayne Cobb. Farmer. He was meant to farm to about the same extent as a brick was meant to fly, and if it came down to the two of them then his money was on the brick; 'black thumb' didn't even begin to define his talents in the world of plant killing. More effective that Agent Orange his pappy said, Jayne didn't have a clue what Agent Orange was, or who he worked for, but he got the idea.

He knew his Ma meant well, but he preferred her well-meaningness from a distance of several light years, at least then she wasn't able to embarrass him in front of the church committee like that time when she had…Jayne abruptly changed mental stream, he'd sworn that he's never go there again, ever.

Maybe he'd clean his guns.

Bored.

Deciding that he'd had enough of being pathetic, well stationary and pathetic (and bored), he made to leave his cabin and get something to eat and drink; maybe… hopefully, there'd be some coffee left; assuming Wash hadn't consumed it all in another of his ongoing and seemingly eternal vigils at the helm. It was a complete mystery to Jayne how one person could drink as much coffee as Wash did and yet retain some measure of apparent control over their central nervous system; although judging by the little man's predilection for the chaos theory approach to piloting, that wasn't a given. And what was up with those dinosaurs? Damn fool was too old to be playing with toys.

Making his way down the central portion of Serenity's companionway, Jayne was relieved not to encounter any of the crew, frankly, he wasn't in the mood for interaction and he couldn't really be bothered donning his 'mercenary mask'. Truth be told, the diverse inhabitants of the ship would have been surprised to learn that one of Jayne's primary motivations for existence was for people to leave him the hell alone and if by becoming the epitome of the anti-social oaf was required to achieve this then so be it. Sometimes the guise, and the concomitant persona, were worth the momentary aggravation of necessary pretence; but then, sometimes, appearance counted for more than reality, which was something Jayne had learned early on in his career where oft-times an ostensible threat was more effective than a multitude of object lessons.

Of course, there was something to be said for the occasional object lesson.

Jayne hadn't become a mercenary out of some misplaced sense of bravado or a need for adventure and certainly not out of a passion for violence, simply, it was what he did best and, as Jayne saw it, if you were an expert shot and a skilled martial artist your career options tended to point in a certain direction. This is not to suggest that Jayne was all sweetness and light, or that his motives were pure as the driven snow; certainly, he had no compunctions about killing in the line of duty, and even killing in the line of off-duty was considered perfectly acceptable if the target had been especially annoying, however, it was fair to say that Jayne would never start anything only finish it.

For some reason he ended up finishing a lot of things.

Swinging into the ship's communal area-cum-galley, Jayne was pleased to find the area deserted; most especially he was pleased to see no River in evidence; while Jayne had moved past a desire to sell the girl to the highest bidder, he still regarded her presence with a degree of suspicion generally reserved for those people who let wild animals wander around their homes in the mistaken assumption that civilisation could be learnt through osmosis. It wasn't that Jayne considered the girl dangerous, at least not in a personal sense - despite the recent knife slash across his chest - instead, it was the pure randomness, the chaos she represented, that concerned Jayne, all the moreso because of her abilities, abilities that could flare and then, just as unexpectedly, fade away. In a lighter moment he had envisioned her imploding and leaving a bloody smear on the deck plates, then his mood, much in the fashion of spring weather, changed and he imagined the girl exploding and taking Serenity, and all aboard, with her.

Taking a seat at the table, insofar as slouching in a chair with his feet propped up could be considered 'sitting', Jayne stared at the light fixture embedded in the steel superstructure that contrived to call itself a ceiling; it was almost as exciting as lying on his bed staring at the light in his cabin. Righting himself with a frustrated sigh, the mercenary sprawled across the table, eye's focused on nothing in particular, not of course, that there was anything of a startlingly aesthetic nature to draw his attention. It was then, eyes wandering, that he caught sight of the object wedged between one of the deck plates and the wall. Curiosity piqued, he heaved himself upright and moved to examine his find. On closer examination, his discovery, turned out to be a book, which caused Jayne to smile - an action that would have undoubtedly startled a majority of the crew who would have received good odds on whether or not Jayne actually knew what a book was.

The thing is, Jayne liked to read, certainly his mother had made sure he knew how to, what with his childhood being punctuated at least once a week by his mother's clarion declaration that she wasn't going raise 'some damn fool illiterate savage'. Jayne would have ignored her if not for the proficiency with which his mother wielded a soup ladle and the fact that dinner was served only after the children had undertaken their schoolwork; Jayne went awful hungry some nights - he also cursed the fact that his mother had the patience of a rock thereby causing his cunningly considered plan of waiting her out to generally fail.

Now Jayne, on occasion, was known to be a mite stubborn, but he had nothing on his mother and eventually he came to the conclusion that if he didn't want to starve to death he'd better do as he was bid. Latter still, he actually came to enjoy reading, to his mind at least, books made a hell of a lot more sense than most people, and better yet, they didn't try to rob your pa or molest your sister. Yet, the unfortunate fact, being on a frontier world and all, was that there weren't that many books to read, other than Alliance propaganda manuals about being an upright citizen, something which didn't particularly appeal to Jayne; thus, whenever he got the chance, off-world, he'd head to the nearest library.

This, however, this was the first time that Jayne had seen a book on board Serenity, other, that is, than Shepherd Book's omnipresent bible-come-conscience-adjuster. Not, of course that Jayne doubted there were books on the ship, as he was fairly certain that hoity-toity doctor read odious love sonnets to himself in order to stiffen the al-dente stylings of his backbone. Of course that was just speculation on the mercenary's part; but then he'd caught enough nauseatingly cow-eyed looks passing between Simon and Kaylee for him to construct quixotic cloud-castles of horror at the potential thought of the doctor reciting sonnets to the girl while perched on a hill supping tea and eating cream cakes.

Thinking further on the subject, Jayne considered some of the others and, in a flight of atypical whimsy, attempted to catalogue their potential libraries. Inara, he mused probably had books from whore school, something like: 'One Hundred and One Positions for Fun and Profit' or, 'Societal Reaction and Response to Mascara'. The captain, he decided, was more politically oriented with titles like 'The Care and Feeding of Institutionalised Hatred' and 'Political Ingratitude for the Defeated', while Zoë, no doubt subscribed to 'Amazon Monthly' and he bet that even River had a copy of 'The Hungry Caterpillar' stashed somewhere.

The book he had discovered, however, appeared to fit none of these categories appearing to be a collection of plays and, in fact, judging by its condition, it appeared to have been wedged in the position Jaynne had noticed it, for a considerable period of time; perhaps even predating Mal's assumption of Serenity's ownership, for while it was whole, the cover was somewhat ragged and the pages bore the brown tinge of oxidation indicative of some measure of age. Jayne wasn't sure if the book had been dropped, or placed deliberately but he knew that if he hadn't been sprawled so inelegantly across the table it would have been unlikely that he would have seen it; a thought that caused him to question why no other had spotted the book over the period it had obviously been there; especially, he conceded, River, who, despite her addled-headed manner had a knack for observing things that others missed.

Book firmly in hand, Jayne retreated to his cabin while, for some reason he couldn't explain, he cast furtive glances about as he made his return, as, for reasons unknown even to him, he wanted no other to discover his prize. Finally, he settled back onto his bunk and began to explore this book, this world created by someone who went by the name of Shakespeare.


	2. Malady or Madness

_I guess I'm still avoiding working on my other fics; this may or may not be a bad thing. I would also like to note that I don't have the faintest idea where this fic is going; this also, may, or may not, be a good thing. _

_Many thanks to all who reviewed the first chapter, your enthusiasm for that encouraged me to focus on this instead of what I probably should be focusing on._

_Please read and review._

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_This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day;  
Thou canst not then be false to any man._  
**William Shakespeare**, _'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii_

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The Shakespeare guy was obviously insane, Jayne thought, as he idly turned the pages of the book he'd found; must've had more voices wandering around the crawlspaces of his mind than damn River, 'cept of course, he put everything down on paper instead of whirling around in circles…or wandering off…or, he remembered with a wince, stabbing innocent mercenaries at the dinner table. Briefly, he considered having a word with Mal about making River sit down and write out what she planned before she gave action to it, before he consigned the idea to his mental wastebasket. In theory, at least to Jayne's way of thinking, the idea of offering Serenity's token head-case some form of positive therapy had to be a good thing, certainly better than the endless cocktail of drugs and mindless platitudes handed out by her idiot brother on, what appeared to be, an eternally, ongoing basis. However, the likelihood of anyone accepting a, in fact, any, suggestion from Jayne, in regards to River's well-being, would, at best, be treated with suspicion and in all probability outright hostility; especially from Simon, who appeared to regard the care of his sister's mental health as a sacred duty handed to him directly from God. Jayne had his doubts, however, as to God's probable reception of the doctor if Simon – and his uppity manner – ever ran into him. The mercenary's money was on God either smiting the man or returning to his Kingdom will unseemly haste and bolting the door behind him. Frankly, Simon whined more often, and in a higher register, than a forty-year-old maiden aunt with morality issues and to Jayne's mind, if offering a constructive suggestion meant he would suffer an ongoing litany about 'ignorant apes,' then River could stay mad.

Sometimes he felt sorry for the girl; sure, the insanity was bad, but nobody deserved to have a brother like that.

It had been a month since he'd found the book and in that period Jayne had become a virtual recluse, leaving his cabin solely to acquire food or, to work out, as due to his profession, he couldn't afford to lose his conditioning; that being said, it was time grudgingly spent as the worlds created by Shakespeare had totally captivated him. This was not to suggest that he agreed with everything Shakespeare had written; in fact, he'd had a long argument with the author over Hamlet's complete inability to implement tactics or strategy; of course, when your main source of critical intelligence, was a ghost with a line of information direct from 'Cryptics Are Us' it was a surprise that Hamlet hadn't thrown himself off the battlements in total frustration. Mind you, Jayne thought, with family and friends like Hamlet had, it was little wonder he was completely bereft of ideas when it came to the operating in the real world. Take a mother with the morals of a two-dollar whore, an uncle who made his mother look good, and a girlfriend who was madder than a bag of hammers and it all screamed impending disaster; Jayne figured it was probably something to do with noble inbreeding or something.

Now, Jayne was quite prepared to acknowledge that Hamlet had assumed a mask of madness in order to achieve certain goals, but overall, his long term practical planning sucked and his threat assessment of his enemies was little better than incompetent. It definitely made Jayne withhold any positive assessments of the tertiary education system in Europe at the time as clearly whatever the hell he'd been studying at university, before his father was assassinated, was useless for anything other than delivering long-winded speeches on the state of the known universe; although, Jayne was prepared to acknowledge that the guy said some pretty cool stuff, even if it was a bit incoherent at times..

The speech that especially disturbed Jayne was where Hamlet was hanging out in a graveyard talking to a skull on, he mentally added, the advice and identification of a clown. 'Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…' and as far as Jayne could figure out, bloody Horatio wasn't within a thousand light-years of the graveyard and frankly, with only clowns present for company, other than an apparently mad Danish prince, who could blame him? This was not to suggest that Jayne didn't understand the intent, or indeed the sentiment, of Hamlet's impassioned _cri-de-coeur_, but to his mind there were plenty of less psychologically messed-up ways of dealing with one's issues…and boy, did Hamlet have issues. Not, he added mentally, as many issues as the crew on Serenity, but certainly enough issues to provide a psychological research unit enough data to acquire significant funding.

Serenity, he was discovering, was its own little Shakespearean world, certainly, to steal one of Shakespeare's lines, those aboard played many parts and they definitely met the criteria for having their exits and entrances, at least insofar as the amount of time they spent running from various agencies, be they friend or foe, could be construed as such. He wondered what Shakespeare would have done if had been exposed to their antics for any length of time: thrown himself off the battlements of Castle Ellsinore and joined Hamlet in the mud. However, Jayne had to hand it to the guy, he wrote a damn good story, even if, assuming Jayne's assumption was correct, he plagiarised massively from the machinations of human history to construct his plots. Of course, the construction of a story around universal archetypes was always a sure-fire way to ensure that the story held at least some measure of interest or relevance for the reader. Shakespeare was also, Jayne surmised, possibly the greatest observer of human nature to walk to face of what had been Earth, rarely, if ever, had he encountered a writer who captured the essence of humanity in a single phrase or observation; thus he wondered why he had never encountered the man's work in any of the libraries he had visited when on-planet; genius was probably outlawed by the Alliance in favour of mediocrity and blind obedience.

He was distracted from his reverie by a knock, or more probably, a kick, at his cabin door.

"Jayne? You in there?"

Joy. It was the Captain. Time to revert to type, if only for the length of time it took to get rid of him.

"Yeah, I'm here. What d'ya want? I ain't done nothin'."

Captain Malcolm Reynolds took the response as an invitation to climb down into Jayne's abode.

"Now Jayne, don't rightly recall sayin' you'd done anything, however since you've been actin' a mite strange of late, I thought I'd better see what's going on."

"Ain't nothin' going on, just want my space is all."

"Now that ain't a crime an' all, but I got to wonderin' that if something were up and you didn't tell me, then you could be a liability."

Jayne mentally rolled his eyes; the inconsistency in the man's logic was almost painful. "If you don't mind me saying, Mal, you regard me as a liability when I am interacting; unless, of course" he added sardonically, "you needed me to look mean or shoot someone, so don't you be telling me I'm a liability because I'm not annoying your whore or your damn doctor."

"Don't you be calling Inara a whore," snapped the captain.

Jayne snorted "Why not? You do?"

"That's different."

"Yes, of course, how could one not perceive the contextual differences between your use of the word and mine," as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jayne mentally cursed himself; all that Shakespeare he'd been reading of late was making his mask slip.

"What did you say?" Reyonds regarded his, or what he thought to be his, semi-tame mercenary suspiciously.

"Said nothin', just noted that you can't have it both ways is all."

"Well fine," said the captain, his annoyance and suspicion rapidly giving way to confusion, he'd come to Jayne's cabin expecting either the mercenary's usual truculence or, failing that, an argument, the last thing he'd been expecting was complete disinterest, nor was he expecting to be beaten about the head with his own prejudices. "Well fine" he repeated, for the lack of anything else to say, and, not receiving any form of acknowledgement from Jayne, climbed out of the cabin.

Jayne had long since tuned the captain out, although he maintained a façade of polite interest in proceedings, if only to prevent the man from becoming even more confused and staying longer as he tried to figure out what was going on. Finally, as Captain Reynolds left, Jayne quirked an eyebrow in amusement and muttered to himself that it was apparently true that the crowned head lay uneasy, before he picked up the book and returned to its study.

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As Mal walked back to the galley he couldn't stop himself from periodically glancing over his shoulder. If one had asked what he was looking for he couldn't have answered, at least not in any coherent capacity, but what he could have told you that he was seriously disturbed for if there was one thing Malcolm Reynolds valued, perhaps more than anything, it was certainty, and when something that he thought he had figured out started acting in a manner that was outside of that figuring, then he got nervous.

"So, how did it go?" asked Wash, as Mal entered the galley.

"Don't rightly know; Jayne sure as hell isn't acting like Jayne though."

"How'd' you mean?"

"He sounded intelligent; well, less Jayne-like."

"You mean less like an escapee from a primate house?" inquired Simon, somewhat acidly.

"Maybe he's possessed."

"Very funny, Wash; in that case how do you feel like a change of career?"

"Huh?"

"Pilot to exorcist."

Wash shrugged, "Fine, but I'll have to ask Zoë first, she might have other plans." The pilot paused to think for a moment, "Mal?"

"What?"

"Do exorcists use dinosaurs?" The captain shrugged, being an expert on neither exorcisms nor dinosaurs.

"I doubt he's possessed," noted Shepherd Book from his place at the table, his omnipresent bible open in front of him. "Possession is simply a metaphor for human degradation, or those situations where those applying the label don't understand the circumstances: psychiatric conditions being a case in point."

"…And you would define Reavers, how?"

"I believe Reavers would clearly fall under the category of spiritual and moral degradation."

"What about River?" Wash asked with a straight face, his eyes a twinkling contrast to the dimly lit room."

"Now Wash, let's not be going there," advised Mal who, although there was no hiding his amusement at the remark, had sighted the doctor preparing to rise in his seemingly eternal defence of his damaged sister;.

Shepherd Book, as was his sometime wont, ignored the inherent whimsy of Wash's question and didactically proceeded with a literal response. "Of a certainty, the child is lost, although in no measure can any measure of degradation be assigned to her, to those," and his tone measurably darkened, "that cast her into this place I have no doubt there is a place reserved for them in that most special of hells." he cast an arch glance at the Mal, "You remember, Captain, that place in hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre."

"Yes, thank you Shepherd…"

"…As I was saying," continued Book as if the captain hadn't spoken, "if we rule out the notion of degradation we must, be extension, accept that River is psychologically afflicted; although even that is open to question."

"So you're sayin' she's possessed then."

"No Wash; I'm saying we don't know what's wrong with her."

"In that case can we say she's possessed until we do know what's wrong with her?"

"No you can't!" interjected Simon, again starting to rise.

Book, anticipating that things were about to get a mite ugly, decided to intervene, which, considering it was his observations that had started the unfortunate direction of the tangent, was probably mete "However, be all that as it may, I thought we were talking about Jayne."

"I fail to see what the problem is," noted Simon, "we're here, he's not; everybody's happy."

"The problem is, that he's not behaving normal; hell, even Inara remarked that Jayne hadn't propositioned her in over a month."

"…And this is a bad thing?"

"Well…no," Mal sounded unsure, "I guess maybe she thinks she's losing her touch; I mean it's not like Jayne's a difficult mark or, for that matter a particularly discriminating one, in the past something that even looked feminine was enough to have him salivatin'."

"Pavlov's mercenary," chuckled Book,

"Huh? Anyway, previously, the only people I've seen ignore Inara were dead…"

"Speaking from experience are we Captain?"

"…Do you mind, Shepherd?" Mal sighed in frustration at his crew's less than helpful interruptions, "as I was trying to say, Jayne is not dead, and his previous behaviour doesn't tend to indicate restraint around the female of the species thus all I can surmise is that Jayne is not acting like Jayne."

"If I may?" inquired the Shepherd, "have we ever actually established how Jayne is supposed to act? That is," he acknowledged "outside of his role of mercenary? For example, I'm not entirely sure you can base an entire behavioural thesis of the man on the basis that he didn't make an expected pass at, and with all due respect to Inara, a woman of easy virtue. Honestly captain, do you know anything about Jayne?"

"I thought we have established that he was slightly more evolved than an ape, but," the doctor appeared to consider for a moment, "less so than a dolphin."

"How about a dinosaur?"

"Wash? Doctor? Shut up. Now padre," he continued, casting an ominous glance at the other two men as if daring them to interject, "while that's all very existential I'm not sure how that helps us any."

"All I'm suggesting is that there might not be anything wrong with Jayne at all. At any rate, he's not hurting anyone so why not leave him be for the time being?"

"Not much else I do, I guess; don't have to be happy about it though," and so it was that Captain Malcolm Reynolds spent the rest of the afternoon brooding.


	3. Green Eggs and Hamlet

_OK, this chapter got seriously out of hand – I feel like someone crept up behind me and attempted to brain me with the entire philosophical canon for planet Earth – so, in no particular order I'd like to apologise to the following:_

_Omar Khayyam, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare (again), the guys who wrote The Bible (and God, if present), Lewis Carroll…and anyone else I forgot…_

_Note: The opening stanza is an attempt to portray River's madness; the grammar is purposely all over the place…unfortunately, I can't make the same claim for the rest of the chapter, which is supposed to be coherent._

_Please, if you manage to (A) Get through this and (b) Enjoy it (or hate it, hate is good), please read and review, and again, many thanks to those who responded to the last chapter._

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_Talking about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself  
_**_Friedrich Nietzsche_**

_I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and  
singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and  
strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an  
electric clock in a thunderstorm._  
**_James Thurber_**

_Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?  
They never mention that part to us, do they?_  
**_George Carlin_**

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She sat, alone.

Even in the midst of others, she was alone; if she had been able to express it she would have compared the sensation to complete sensory deprivation but more profound and all the more aggravating and enticing for the sounds and images that hovered at the periphery of her consciousness, yet absent from apprehension.

Trapped behind a curtain manufactured in the recesses of her mind, a metaphorical dustcover to hide the shattered artefacts of her psyche, she watched the world spin past, not in ordered circles, but in a series of wildly ellipses and arcing parabola that dipped and spun in dizzying patterns that defied her attempts to coalesce them into some form of coherence…

…And yet…

…Occasionally, a voice, or an image, would penetrate the curtain, fleetingly, out of time, out of place, without context but nevertheless holding meaning, and where this occurred the information stuck as if affixed to a web and from this she began to rebuild her world.

…But now, something had changed. She had felt it awaken. No, not awaken, for as its awareness impinged on the edges of what was again becoming her she recognised its presence as belonging to the group of things that hovered without the ambit of her awareness; no, this had always been there, lurking behind it's own construction, behind a fabrication composed of the nuance of misdirection…

…Yet, for some reason, the mask was slipping.

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Dinnertime, the highlight of the day, Jayne noted somewhat sardonically, as he roused himself from the refuge of his bunk and headed towards the galley. He tried, but failed miserably to generate some measure of anticipation, if not enthusiasm, for the hyper-processed molecules posing as something, which, may or may not have been vaguely related to food, at least, that is, on some theoretical sub-atomic level. Realist that he was, he acknowledged that real produce, food that had colour, texture and a directly traceable relationship to something that was once alive – be it an ever so humble bean or tomato – was expensive, and an uncommon commodity in the black; nevertheless it didn't diminish his occasional longing for his mother's home cooking, even if the good woman had the innate ability to burn water.

This particular meal, however, was a repast he would gladly have missed; and this time it wasn't the food he was avoiding. In the period since the captain's visit the mercenary had taken to mentally berating himself for his slip which, given the captain was anything but an idiot, was something that would bear notice and continue, no doubt, to be a topic for future discussion. Irrespective of his curse-filled internal monologue Jayne was aware that he could only make the best of a bad situation indeed, he shrugged, there was no point challenging the moving finger…

"…and having writ: Moves on, nor all your Piety and Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it," came a soft voice from the shadows.

It was fortunate for Jayne that the ceiling in the part of the corridor through which he was passing was relatively high. "Jesus Christ, girl, you scared the hell out of me, you shouldn't be lurking in corridors like that."

River spared the larger man a bemused glance clearly unconcerned at his sharp reaction, in turn he held her gaze and watched in sudden apprehension as her eyes momentarily held an acuity and focus he'd not seen before. It was one thing to be made to jump in sudden surprise, it was another thing entirely to see madness replaced by something akin to depthless wisdom. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the penetration n the girl's gaze was gone and Jayne couldn't be certain if he'd simply imagined what he thought he'd seen.

"Have you come to view the looking glass? Is it time to pass through to your reflection? Off with his head! Put on a new head, a better head."

"I swear you're getting crazier girl, either that our your idiot brother's been giving you the wrong medicine again."

River shrugged, and scampered off down the corridor towards the galley, leaving Jayne to briefly contemplate what she'd said; 'off with my head?' he thought; wonderful, the village idiot had graduated to decapitation fantasies. On consideration, he decided it was better than her raving about the guys with the blue hands; sure, after his aborted attempt to sell the family Tam out, he had a better understanding of the issues involved, but he swore, next time he heard 'two-by-two hands of blue, he was going to build a bloody ark. This time it was he who shrugged and while it couldn't be said that he scampered, he did indeed, at the insistent prompting of his stomach, make his way to the galley with a measure of haste.

Entering the galley he noticed it was almost deserted, with the exception of River who sat alone in a corner, apparently humming to herself, and Inara, Zoë and Kaylee who had gathered around the stove and were staring into a pot with expressions bordering on the foreboding.

"Evenin' ladies, looking for a Scottish King in there are we?"

"What you talking about Jayne?" inquired Zoë, "we're simply trying to figure out what this soup is supposed to be."

Somewhat theatrically, the large mercenary sighed, "Never mind, just a passing thought."

"Thought you weren't all shook on thinking, Jayne," noted Zoë.

"That depends entirely upon what you pay me, at present you pay me enough to hold a gun and look menacing; tactical application and strategic planning comes at an extra premium."

"Where's your loyalty, Jayne?" inquired Inara.

"Loyalty to whom? You? Mal? Serenity? My loyalty is where it usually is, tucked safely behind my common sense, and frankly, it's a bit rich for you to be talking to me about loyalty when the majority of you see me a little more than a hired thug; I've yet to see any of you demonstrate the slightest bit of loyalty towards me."

"You sound bitter."

"Realistic actually. You remember realism don't you, that's the bit where you're a whore and I don't answer to you. Anyway, you'll not see me play the sycophantic courtier to Mal's Lear, simply out of gratitude for having a job."

"Who?"

"What do you mean, 'who'? The captain, Mal, remember him? You should do for all the time you spend fluttering about each other like moths 'round a damn candle"

"No. Who is this Lear?" asked Inara

Before Jayne had a chance to answer, River's voice rolled across the room in tones that held an echo of oncoming thunder "Lear was fool. Thought to govern by right and ego before he descended into the black and faced the monster that was him." Shadow cast the slight girl in a clouded chiaroscuro of patterned darkness yet a single band of light captured her face rendering the lambent depth of her dark eyes in a striking, yet vulnerable, contrast to the surrounding pallor of her skin, "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." While her words were directed to the room at large, there was no mistaking the person to whom its intent was directed.

Jayne grimaced in rueful bemusement, first Shakespeare, now philosophers from the Earth that was; the girl was full of surprises. Well he could play that game too. "Pot and Kettle eh? Alright Cassandra, if you say so, although I'm breaking precedent and divine dictate by listening to you; it will be interesting to see which one of us goes mad."

River's gaze turned speculative "Madness is relative; I'm not your relative, but neither am I mad," then the moment passed and the girl returned to her tuneless humming, her eyes again losing the focus that had momentarily overtaken her.

"Jayne, you're actin' awful funny," noted Kaylee, and in her observation there appeared to be a hint of melancholy, for in Jayne she's always felt a measure of kinship due to their similar upbringing; now it was if she felt even the tenuousness of that thread slipping from her grasp. This wasn't to suggest that she ever felt close to the big man, but he was a constant reminder of the family and home environment of the frontier and, as such, she preferred to have that reminder remain constant; it's was one of the little ironies of human nature that as much as a person might change they wanted, and expected, the things around them to stay the same. What was, perhaps, even more ironic, was that Jayne had not changed. He smirked to himself: thus we have aphorisms, he thought, for the more things change the more they stay the same, and judging by the defensive reaction of those on board the greater the expectation of stasis the less welcome that change was.

Deciding that having a metaphysical argument with himself was, at best, counter-productive, Jayne decided to change the subject. This was probably just as well, for while having an argument with yourself was one thing, doing it in front of an audience was something else entirely as was clearly evident by the looks he was receiving.

"So, assuming it's not a Scottish King, what're we having for dinner?"

"Would you believe some form of processed protein?"

"Well that's not entirely a surprise, just so long as it's not a protein derived from processed Scots royalty then we're all good."

Zoë regarded Inara a bemused look, "Do you have any idea what he's talking about."

"No," replied he companion, "and whilst I am loathe to challenge precedent by paying attention to anything Jayne says, I'm starting to think that, at least in the interests of my own sanity, it might not be a bad idea."

"What do you mean, Inara?" asked Kaylee.

Before Inara could respond, Jayne, awarding the courtesan a wry smile, spoke, "She thinks I'm up to something over and above. How would you put it, Inara? My usual lecherous barbarism, and, as such, she's going to stop ignoring me…" he paused for dramatic effect before adding, "…be still my beating heart."

"I wasn't aware you had a heart, Jayne."

"There are probably a lot of things you're not aware of."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're an intelligent woman, ostensibly anyway, you work it out," at that point the demands of his sorely neglected stomach interrupted proceedings, "you planning on dishing up that food some point?"

"Not 'til the captain and the others get here," replied Zoë

"Where are they?"

"Captain's on the bridge with Wash, don't rightly know about the others, although I imagine Kaylee knows where Simon is."

"Kaylee?"

"Sickbay, I suppose; he chased me out of there earlier, said he had to run some tests or something."

"Probably concocting his latest devils brew for the girl. Don' know why he just don't stick with aspirin for the good he's done previous, least that way she might still be insane but won't have any headaches."

"Now that's just plain not nice, Jayne, Simon does his absolute best for River and I won't have you mocking his efforts."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, however," Jayne retorted "what people generally forget, is that it is the road to hell. You remember Hell? Shepherd keeps threatening to send the captain there; I think that might pass for Shepherd-type entertainment, or something. Anyway, while your doctor may be trying to help his sister, all he's really doing is blundering around in the dark."

"…And I suppose you could do better?"

"Course not, but that's not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

"The point is that…" Jayne cast a measuring look in the direction of River, who hadn't moved from the corner during the conversation "…that some things are best left alone; 'f you want to get all Shepherd-like about it remember that there is a time for everything and if something is supposed to happen then it probably will."

"Isn't that unnecessarily fatalistic?"

"Maybe so, but I've learnt from experience that one can only put their hand into the fire so many times before it gets burnt; life's far too short to continually get burnt, and the whole point of getting burnt the first time is that you learn not to do it again."

"Hark at the mercenary," came the captain's voice from the doorway, "you should be the last person to speak about tempting fate."

"Maybe so," noted Jayne, "but the difference between you and I, is that I, as a mercenary, choose my risks, you on the other hand are still living out a petulant revenge fantasy, so tell me, which one of us is more likely to get burnt first?"


	4. One ship, two ship, my ship your ship

_So, another chapter completed. This makes four. Where I had absolutely no idea where this thing was going when I started it I would now like to confess that I have even less idea now…this could become a problem; unless of course you, the gentle reader is happy for me to flail around in literary confusion… if you have any interesting ideas as to what you think I should do with it, please email me_

_BTW: this fic is going briefly on hiatus as I finish the ravening behemoth that is my CSI fic – thus sparing my life from the wrath of my beta._

_For this chapter, I decided to bring out some of the crew to play – I thought it a bit cruel and unusual to leave Jayne in his quarters arguing with the walls; I promise to treat them gently…maybe…if they're good._

…_and yes, I know some of these actions etc are very OOC…but I'm having fun…_

_Note: All of the 'knowledge' Jayne refers to/ has is obviously contemporary to current (meaning our) times and knowledge sets – I couldn't be bothered trying to create a lot of new authors/ philosophers/ artists etc simply to sound science-fiction-y/ future-y._

_Attribution: The poem River quotes is by WW1 poet **Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)**_

_As always, I hope you enjoy what I've written (or just plain hate it)…anyway, your reviews and feedback is appreciated and welcomed._

_

* * *

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_Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere._  
**G. K. Chesterton**** (1874 - 1936)**

_We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do  
not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach._  
**Bertrand Russell**** (1872 - 1970)**

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**

"What did you say?" the captain's voice was low and dangerous; clearly implying that violence would be presented unless the resultant answer from his protagonist provided a measure of satisfaction.

Jayne, for his part, appeared neither intimidated nor concerned; in actuality, he appeared more bemused than anything; for some reason his mind latched on to an anachronistic saying about 'denial; being not just a river in Egypt,' although he couldn't for the life of him remember where, why or even when, he had encountered the aphorism. For that matter, he wasn't too sure about Egypt either, although he was fairly certain it was a country…somewhere…mentally he shook himself, much like a dog emerging from the sea, and refocused on the topic at hand.

"Be honest with yourself, Mal. This whole freebooter thing of yours is, at heart, all about sticking it to the man. The Alliance beat you in the war and took away your toys and here you are saying 'I'm free, I'm independent, I belong to no-one', but what are you really? Well, for a start you're poor, running scared on a regular basis and most of all living on nothing more than principles and dreams and while that's all well and good you can't buy fuel with principles."

"At least I've got my integrity." Mal retorted, his petulant tone reminiscent of a child desperately trying to defend its corner of the sandpit; except, in this instance, considering that Serenity happened to be hovering – inasmuch as one 'could hover in the middle of a vacuum - in the middle of nowhere, somewhat difficult for him to take his ball and go home. Yet everyone, even Jayne, knew it was more than a simple childish desire to preserve what was his that drove the captain onwards in his seemingly one-man crusade against the bureaucratic monolith that was the Alliance; for at heart Malcolm Reynolds was a modern-day Galahad with a purity of spirit and devotion to a cause that often undercut the ability to consider options at odds with that cause.

Jayne shrugged, he wasn't going to argue the point with Malcolm Reynolds when it came to displays of honesty and integrity; despite the propensity of said traits to have the crew of Serenity routinely hunted, shot at and generally reviled in polite society. However, there was a time and a place for such things. "I'm not going to argue that integrity is a bad thing," a comment which produced polite snickering form various corners of the room due to the incongruous image it created with the accepted incarnation of the man making the comment, "but I would suggest that it may be beneficial to more closely align one's integrity with a measure of common sense and, dare I say it, self-interest."

"What do you mean?"

"I think he means we should take jobs based on the merit of the job and the potential payoff instead of basing our actions on whether or not they might piss off the Alliance," noted Zoë.

"You agree with him?" was the incredulous response, "whatever happened to loyalty?"

For perhaps the first time in the existence of Serenity, Zoë failed to meet her captain, and friend's, eyes; "This isn't about loyalty, sir, this is about living; I'd like to be doin' some if it ain't too much of a problem; and I can't be doin' it if I have to spend a goodly portion of my time running and hiding."

"But you were with me on the field, you know the truth."

"That I do sir," Zoë replied sadly, "war's been over for a long time now though, no point reliving the past."

"So you're siding with Jayne."

"Wouldn't say that, Mal," her use of her captain's given name a testament to her sincerity, "but the man's got a point, and him being Jayne an' all doesn't make what he's saying any less true."

"But it's Jayne…" the captain insisted.

"That's not an argument I'd consider grounded in any sort of logic, you'll be starting to sound like River in a moment."

Before Malcolm could open his mouth to respond, River rejoined the conversation, such as it was, the use of her name obviously rousing her from her state of reverie.

_"What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?  
- Only the monstruous anger of the guns.  
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle  
Can patter out their hasty orisons.  
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;  
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -  
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;  
And bugles calling for them from sad shires._

_What candles may be held to speed them all?  
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes  
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.  
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;  
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,  
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds"_

The effect of River's words on the captain was immediate and hit him with the force of a well-aimed shovel, effectively silencing him.

"What was that, River?" asked Inara, her concern for the captain for once breaching the self-imposed limitations of her station and public attitude. River didn't deign to notice the question as she retreated, once again, into the quasi-autistic state that had marked her behaviour of late.

"I'm guessing it was a poem of some sort," noted Jayne, his tone deliberately vacant in a seeming attempt to recapture his lost claim to village idiocy. No one was buying it, for while Jayne had thought to mask the tone of his commentary there was no hiding the understanding and pain that lurked in his hooded gaze.

"Jayne, now is not the time for your games."

"Fine," he sighed resignedly, "It's a poem called 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', 'twas was written a long time ago, 'bout a war long forgotten."

"And how is it you know this poem?"

"Read it somewhere," his attitude was pure truculence, "which ain't none of your damn business anyhow, and" he continued "don't ask me why that damn fool girl started spouting it, last thing I know anything about is how her mind works; last thing I want to know for that matter." He added, "Anyway, thought we were talkin' 'bout being a bit more legitimate."

"No. We were reacting to your accusing Mal of using Serenity as a juvenile revenge fantasy."

"What can I say? If the shoe fits…"

"It's still my ship though."

Jayne glanced at the captain, a sardonic gleam lighting his eyes, "Back with us then are you? The question, or the problem if you will, was never about who owned or controlled the ship, the point was referencing what you did, and apparently continue to do, with it and the reasons for such use."

"My ship, my rules. I thought was a concept simplistic enough even for someone with as loose an understanding of the finer points of property ownership as yourself."

The mercenary shrugged, "What's mine is mine. What's yours is also mine, whereas 'yours' is constituted as anything that isn't nailed down, and where 'nailed down' is considered to be anything that can't be pried up, off or out."

"Best of luck prying a ship off the ground."

"That would be why it has engines." Jayne's eye's glinted speculatively, "anyhow, it's kind of hard to argue with gravity, what with it bein' a universal constant an' all; it don't tend to pay too much attention to a man arguin' at it."

"That would be because you tend to do most of your arguin' at the point of a gun, ain't never seen the dirt respond to bein' shot."

"Well that would depend on what you shoot it with, I guess."

"I believe I mentioned that you do most of your arguin' at the point of a gun, not a rocket launcher."

"I can arrange a rocket launcher if necessary; but I can't see that being anymore effective than trying to talk the damn ship into the air. Anyway, what's the point in tryin' to steal the damn thing? It's too big to put in my pocket and I can't fly it by myself. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of the black, not sitting on the dirt somewhere fancy so it's not like there's a multitude of buyers just waiting outside to take it off my hands, unless you're aware of local spaceship buyers who just happen to live in a vacuum."

"I'd hardly call the Reavers 'buyers'"

Jayne winced, "You have a point there."

While the two men bickered, the women, demonstrably – at least in their own opinion - imbued with more sense and less testosterone, rolled their eyes in that eternally feminine gesture that denoted a point somewhere between frustration, bemusement and outright superiority. Somewhat inevitably, it was Inara, extending the incisors of feminine malice, who interjected herself into a conversation that had devolved into little more than an argument as to who was more right: never let it be said that intelligence and wit should stand in the way of childish dramatics.

"While this is all terribly exciting and I'm just all a-quiver at this bracing display of masculine dominance, would you two mind comparing genitals later?"

Malcolm scowled at the companion, "This is about my ship and how what I say on my ship goes."

"Would you like for us to be dressin' up in wool and go 'baa' too, sir?"

"I'm not takin' your point, Zoë"

Jayne snorted, "I thought I was supposed to be the stupid one, and I can see what she's saying."

"Jayne," the dark-skinned woman muttered, "shut up."

"Now why would I be shuttin' up? Seems like a perfect time to be talkin' what with the captain here getting all uppity and protective of his property an' referring to us in a fashion that would make a serf blush. While it might be suitin' you folk to boil your shoes and eat bark soup it doesn't suit me."

Zoë regard the mercenary quizzically, apparently trying to connect the metal dots of his metaphor-laced diatribe before giving up and deciding that directness was the best policy. "Jayne, if you don't shut up I'll shoot you."

"Right, I'll shut up."

"…And to think we thought you were stupid," murmured Inara.

"Stupid I may be, suicidal I'm not; although I have to admit that being shot by Zoë sounds infinitely preferable to being talked to death by the captain."

"Hey! I'm perfectly happy to shoot you."

"Wouldn't that get in the way of your morals, ethics and all those other things you keep beating me around the head with any time I suggest we follow a course of action other than that dictated by your Manual for Constipated, Virgin Boy-Scouts?"

"I'm sure I could make an exception for you, Jayne, in fact, if you stand over by the wall we could even call it performance art."

"Well, being a spaceship and all I can't threaten you with never getting me out of the carpet but it's not a course of action I'd recommend, I mean, Jackson Pollock you're not."

"Jackson who?"

"Pollock, he's an artist, you know, like Leonardo da Vinci…" Jayne took in the blank look of his captain and tried again, "…Picasso?…" if anything, Reynolds managed to look even more ignorant. "Christ Mal, were you raised in a cave?" The larger man looked imploringly at Inara, "help me out here, surely you learnt something about art at whore school."

"Jayne, I told you not to call her a whore."

"You've told me a lot of things lately, I was going to forget something eventually."

Before the seemingly eternal wrangling could continue, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot crackled in the confined space of the galley, almost immediately, this was followed by the even more unmistakable sound of a bullet ricocheting of metal which was, in turn, followed by the hardly unsurprising sound of bodies diving for cover.

From beneath the sheltering prescence of the galley table, Zoë glared at the two men.

"I thought I told you to shut up."


	5. A Thousand Steps

_So, I finally got around to producing another chapter. I must admit, I found this somewhat difficult to write insofar as it's becoming more and more difficult for me to manufacture situations for Jayne to beat people over the head with his intellect._

_Dammit! I might have to come up with a plot, and that means that this thing could continue for as long as my damn CSI fic did…which I actually finished…heaven forefend._

_However, the above said, I have been deeply gratified and flattered that as many people as there have, have (ugh – grammar) enjoyed this fic. Thank you one and all for your kind words and reviews …don't stop on my account _

_NOTES: The quote from the Tao Te Ching was taken from Peter Merel's interpolation of such; I highly recommend it. Actually, I just flat out recommend the **Tao Te Ching**, Lao Tzu was a genius._

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_

_He who knows does not speak.__  
__He who speaks does not know  
_**Lao Tzu**

_The more laws and order are made prominent,__  
__The more thieves and robbers there will be.  
_**Lao Tzu**

_When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,__  
__There arises the recognition of ugliness.__  
__When they all know the good as good,__  
__There arises the recognition of evil.  
_**Lao Tzu**

**

* * *

**

Mail wasn't what you'd call a regular event in the black. Firstly, from a purely logistical perspective, the idea of a postal service worker – on the updated equivalent of a bicycle – chasing ships through space was somewhat impractical. Also, the concept of bad neighbourhoods, taken to extremes by the Reavers, meant that it was difficult to attract reliable – or sane - staff. The other barrier to a postal service was the omnipresent reach of technology. What had once started as text-based circle jerks amongst adolescents on the earth-that-was, had expanded to the point where it could only be adequately described as an interstellar plague of Egyptian proportions; it was only the fact that Alliance network service and maintenance was complete rubbish to any and all the worlds outside the 'ostensibly' civilised core that stopped planetary computer networks from overloading due to sheer weight of useless communications.

Of course there were some things that couldn't be sent electronically; garish woolly hats a case in point, and this necessitated the establishment of businesses akin to the trading posts of the American Wild West, albeit, technologically updated to take account into account modern developments in taste and fashion. The only drawback to such business, per se, was the indefinite period they often had to hold goods as they waited for the intended recipient to turn up. While it was true that a message could be sent to the relevant parties almost instantaneously indicating that a parcel of some description was waiting for them, the speed of their arrival to collect said package was largely dependent on their position in the 'verse relative to the particular trading establishment that had contacted them. The were other variable that also needed to be taken into consideration when determining when, or if, the goods were to be collected; for example, whether the intended recipients were being chased by The Alliance, Reavers …or both.

Perhaps the best place to send anything not going Core-wards was Persephone, a semi-civilised dustbowl with delusions of adequacy and pretensions towards being civilised; sometimes it got close. The planet, ever preparing for the inevitable - in the eyes of its governors' and their re-election plans - expansion of the Core, held the latest and greatest in all things technological, nevertheless it was, and would always be the epitome of mutton trying to disguise itself as lamb.

Serenity and her crew fit right in.

Not so much because of their resemblance to disguised mutton – although, on past occasion, Jayne had been referred to by Inara as a 'useless lump of meat' – but because of the facility with which they took to the necessary requirements of dissembling and obfuscation needed to pass with any measure of ease.

This is not to suggest, however, that every visit required the donning of cloaks and the requisitioning of daggers; sometimes the crew of Serenity just needed a little downtime, sometimes they even had fun but to a man, woman, and if Wash was to be believed, dinosaur, the first stop was always the trading post.

The captain was prepared to concede that he was a mite cautious about collecting his mail, seeing as how the last time Serenity had visited someone had sent them a non-body; but even he craved some measure of communication even if was only the latest in a line of threats from the power company for him to pay his bill or face the consequences. Admittedly, he wasn't too concerned the concept of consequences as determined by a power company, what could they do, turn his ship off at the wall?

----

After his visit to the 'post-office', Jayne was again firmly ensconced in the privacy of his cabin. Once again, his mother had sent him her equivalent of a care package, an object that, while sent with the best of intentions, was something that needed to be approached with the utmost caution. Fortunately, in this instance, Mother Cobb hadn't included any of her cooking, although the hat of packages past had been replaced with a pair of socks taken directly from a junkie's nightmare. Carefully placing the stockings-of-horror aside, Jayne delved deeper into the package. In short order he retrieved: a pair of fingerless gloves – hand-knitted, and possibly even more garish than the socks, a somewhat ragged and obviously well-loved bear of dubious provenance and a book with a letter tucked inside. The note, as with all Cobb communications was short and to the point.

"_Boy,"_ it proclaimed; Jayne was touched at the obviously heartfelt sentiment of the greeting.

"_Hope you are good. We are good, except for your brother who fell down the well. Again."_ Jayne had often wondered how he, a skilled martial artist and mercenary, could be related to someone with all the co-ordination of a multi-lingual riot.

"_It's near winter here so I sent you some socks and gloves."_ Jayne was fairly certain such logic made sense somewhere in the 'verse, where precisely, he couldn't say, but he was fairly certain, that at some point, Serenity would end up visiting somewhere cold.

"_I was cleaning the attic and found your bear, didn't think it right to throw it on the Harvest bonfire, so here you go; if I remember rightly, you were awful fond of it."_ 'Fond' was probably an understatement. The large man, after checking there was no one to see, took time to reminisce on the numerous times he and his childhood friend had taken over the 'verse. He sighed resignedly; things were a lot easier back then. In a child's mind the world was one of absolutes: black and white, good and bad, right and wrong and there was nothing a boy and his bear couldn't accomplish; nowadays things were somewhat more involved.

"_Your sister sends her regards; she sent you this book; you always did like books."_ Jayne wondered if she was still married to the idiot lawyer. Last time he was in town he'd offered to kill the guy for her and make it look like an accident, but his sister had declined, saying she hadn't had time to take out a decent life insurance policy. He was fairly sure she was just being polite and, that in reality, she didn't really want him to kill her husband seeing as how she was a Cobb an' all and thus perfectly capable of killing him herself.

"_Try and write back this time."_ It wasn't his fault that Reavers had destroyed the last letter he'd sent. Admittedly, they'd destroyed the entire settlement, but it was his letter that was the important thing, especially in consideration of the time that he'd spent agonising over a how to come up with a variation on the classic: 'Hi. I'm fine' Bye'.

"_Ma."_ That bit was fairly self-evident; he was Jayne, she was his mother; unless strange Uncle Phil had started wearing her dresses again. Maybe, Jayne thought, he'd better write back just to make sure.

Putting the letter down, he picked up the book his sister had sent. Leather-bound, its age was evident, at least if the musty smell of the pages was anything to go by. He wondered where she had found it; books, at least those of any antiquity, were hard to come by on the frontier as the general environment wasn't usually conducive to maintaining them in the sort of condition their age required. Jayne took a brief moment to wonder at the sanity of his sister sending such a volume to him, for while the frontier towns' weren't exactly optimal book repositories with their sometimes basic living conditions, the interstellar carrier services, with their reputation for being able to reduce a concrete block to its constituent atoms in minutes, were even less civilised; although in large part that was more by choice than circumstance.

Gently, Jayne turned the book over in his hand and smiled in genuine pleasure when he saw the title. The Tao Te Ching was one of the few holy books that had survived from the Earth-that-was and with its philosophy based around the concepts of balance and acceptance had, in some quarters, become the unofficial code of the mercenary. It had become clear to Jayne, early in his mercenary endeavours, that the mercenary that had neither a balanced worldview, or the ability to accept the ups-and-downs of fate, was little better than a paid fanatic or, he noted wryly, the captain (or would that be serjeant?). Carefully he opened the cover and scanned the first few passages his mind slowly translating them from the ancient Chinese into a more recognisable form:

**_1. The Way_**

_The Way that can be experienced is not true;  
The world that can be constructed is not real.  
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;  
The world represents all that exists and may exist._

_To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;  
To experience with abstraction is to know the world.  
These two experiences are indistinguishable;  
Their construction differs but their effect is the same._

_Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,  
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world_.

Jayne lay back and made himself comfortable, determining that the greater part of the day would be spent in contemplation of his sister's gift; it wasn't like there was anything else to do about the ship and he wasn't really in the mood for drinking and whoring, for some reason all the enjoyment of ostensibly living up to that particular stereotype had disappeared.

Of course someone had to take that particular opportunity to bother him.

"Jayne, you there?" It was Shepherd Book.

"No. Go away."

"May I have a word?"

"How can you have a word if I'M NOT HERE!" The last was bellowed at the door in the hope that the Shepherd might actually take the hint and go away.

"Please, Jayne."

Giving in, albeit in a manner notably lacking in grace, Jayne surrendered to the inevitable. "Fine. Come in."

Accepting the invitation, the Shepherd descended into the limited confines of the mercenary's room; it was, to his recollection, the first time he had been here. If he had held any preconceptions, and with regards to the mercenary how could he not, as to what he should expect in Jayne's room, then he was to be disappointed.

"Looking for the bodies of murdered children, Shepherd? Perhaps a virgin sacrifice?" The sarcasm was obvious and pointed.

"Well…no…"

"You don't seen sure," this time the tone was sardonic, "maybe I can find something suitably depraved in order to make you feel more comfortable; that's what you want isn't it? To feel more comfortable, I mean; you can't exercise that calm, all-knowing superiority thing of yours when you're off balance now, can you?"

A hint of steel flashed in the older man's eyes. "It would take more than anything you could say or do to shake my composure, Jayne."

The mercenary smiled knowingly, "And that's just it, isn't it? You wish it could. You wish something could actually touch your heart again, actually make you feel horror or disgust; instead you're reduced to making cryptic comments in the captain's direction about how much more aware you are of the grander scheme of things than he." Jayne smiled archly, "you should give up the oblique reference thing, it's getting old."

Book sighed tiredly, "I didn't come here to argue with you."

"Pity, I was having fun. Alright, Shepherd, what do you want?"

"I wanted to question your attitude to a few things."

"How very…pastoral…" Jayne noted wryly, "and what, pray, has brought on this need to meddle? Shouldn't you be off making the blind lame, or whatever it is you Shepherd folk do on your days off."

"Actually, by question, I meant discuss. Of late you've articulated a worldview, which would appear to be at odds with your established persona; I simply wished to discuss the reasons for this" he regarded the larger man with an arch expression, "if you like you could call it a scientific inquiry."

"So what you're saying is that I've fallen out of your standardised taxonomy for what constitutes a Jayne, and as such you wish to more closely examine matters to see if I've mutated into something else." Jayne paused, considering, "I've got an alternate suggestion…"

"…And that would be…"

"…That you go away and I get to read my book in peace."

"See! That's the point. The old Jayne wouldn't be lying around reading if we were in port, he'd be off drinking and whoring."

Jayne sighed patiently, while he knew that Book had – to put it crudely – something up his butt, he wasn't normally this annoying; or, for that matter, stupid. "That's an assumption, Shepherd. You assume that what I did in the past because that what I chose to tell people I did, you don't actually have any evidence to that effect though, do you?"

"Well…no…" the Shepherd conceded, "but if that's the case, what were you doing?"

"…and that leads us back to my previous statement."

"Which was?"

"Go away so I can read; and if you don't go away, I'll start cleaning my guns. It would be a terrible tragedy," he continued, "if one of them happened to accidentally misfire during that process and, say, shoot the annoying Shepherd who didn't know how to take a hint…"

Even the Shepherd got that message. "Fine. I'm going."

Jayne didn't seem to care his attention having returned to his book, "That's nice," he mumbled idly, "don't fall down the steps and kill yourself on the way out; I've just tidied."


	6. Is it a Horse? No, it's a Planet

_Right, I went in search of a plot. I'm not sure why, but I did. Those reviewers who made the 'suggestion' - and I use that term advisedly - were probably correct to some extent, and I thank them for their honesty; I don't thank them, however, for making me go away and think, I was having fun before…now I have to pretend to be all serious. I should also like to note that I am thoroughly ticked off that neither of you replied to my in-depth explanation for why I was doing things the way I was. **Mutter…** **sulk…** **snarl**_

_To those of you have enjoyed what I've been doing so far, never fear, I've still managed to be nasty to just about everyone else, whilst making Jayne be his new improved self – however, I've broadened the scope for everyone else on board to be completely nasty to each other…what fun!_

_I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to the following:_

_Lewis Carroll, Lao Tsu, Shakespeare, God/ Gods/ Allah…etc, Most of Western civilisation and some reality TV shows…I should probably also apologise to you the reader for having to put up with this lunacy I'm trying top pass off as fiction; I salute your bravery – but essentially, I should really say: "Run away, run away…" …"Why, it's only a rabbit"_

_As ever, I'm gratified by your reviews, they keep me writing, although I doubt they do much for my psychiatric condition_

_

* * *

_

_We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent _

_than from the machinations of the wicked._

_

* * *

_

As Serenity blasted away from Persephone, the crew hurried to finish their routine post-take off tasks before assembling in the common area-come-galley for some food, conversation and to find out what random part of the 'verse they were to be flung towards in order to euphemistically ply what the more optimistic amongst them called 'their trade'.

The visit to Persephone had been successful, successful insofar as Mal had been paid, in full no less, for their last job without the usual recourse of Zoë having to threaten or, for that matter, shoot anyone. Actually, that wasn't strictly correct. It was more correct to note that Zoë hadn't had to threaten or shoot the people with whom they were doing business, she did, however, 'accidentally' – or so she claimed with a very poor attempt at an innocent expression – manage to knock the small-time, would-be gang boss, Badger into a particularly large and rank puddle of effluvia.

"You'll neffer do bizniss in 'dis town agin," the abbreviated mobster ranted, all the while trying to maintain an air of affronted professional dignity; an image that was somewhat undone when he inverted his omnipresent bowler hat and something best left to the imagination rained with viscous precision over his pate.

Now, back on the ship, Zoë was dryly regaling the company with the tale, the sly gleam in her eyes the only indication, at least to those that knew her, just how amused she really was. While Mal saw dealing with Badger as a necessary evil, considering as how they had needed him in order to successfully pursue business opportunities originating out of Persephone, Zoë, on the other hand, saw no reason not to express her contempt for the odious little man; especially since the time the groups' mutual business paths crossed, he had dared to 'lay hands' on her in a misguided attempt to charm the woman into his employ. It was only the captain's rapid intervention that had prevented Zoë from acting in an inappropriately precipitous manner.

Now, however, things had changed. With the association gained through doing business with Sir Warrick Harrow, Mal – and by extension the crew of Serenity – had acquired a degree of legitimacy that allowed them to sidestep the seedier underbelly of the galactic trading fraternity. Badger, who had, in some measure, initiated the original contact with Harrow, was less that impressed about being cut out of the potentially lucrative action inasmuch as an ongoing association with Harrow would also grant him the legitimacy he craved far more than Mal ever would. The captain, being the captain, took every opportunity – when such presented – to remind Badger of his professional unworthiness in the polite and subtle way that only he could; Zoë, however, was never one for subtlety.

"So, where we goin' next?" rumbled Jayne "somewhere interestin' I hope, I could do with a spot of violence to stretch the muscles; I'm getting cobwebs."

River, taking that as her cue, began to recite nursery rhymes ;"Incy wincy spider, climbed up the spout…"

Mal, overhearing the question as he entered the room, whilst managing to ignore River who had moved on to something to do with rings and roses, answered "Place called Bellerophon,"

"Isn't that a horse?" queried Wash.

"No love, that's Bucephalas; Bellerophon was a hero."

"I thought it was a planet?" noted Kaylee curiously.

"Would you people please shut up?" muttered the captain, who appeared to be valiantly attempting to hold his brains in, which threatened to flow out his ears in response to his crew's incessant prattle.

"That has to be a record," Jayne noted idly to Book, as he carefully cleaned a dismantled Vera, "even for us."

The Shepherd shrugged, "Don't rightly know, Jayne, it's not as if I time these little encounters." Several days had passed since the pair's discussion in Jayne's cabin, and while the Shepherd was somewhat skittish around Jayne, inasmuch as the larger man had pointed out a few unwelcome home-truths that Book wasn't particular keen to re-confront, the mercenary had apparently put things behind him, either that or he neither seemed to notice or, more likely care; life for Jayne, it appeared simply continued.

Book meant to ask him about that at some point.

"So what did everybody get?" asked Kaylee, her jackdaw personality haring off on yet another of its myriad tangents; she loved mail stops almost as much as she loved Christmas; mail meant family, friends and belonging.

"I believe," interrupted the captain, with the carefully enunciated patience that clearly indicated a deep-seated unamusement at being ignored, "that I was about to discuss our next job,"

"With the horse?"

"No! Not with the horse. As I was say…

"…All the king's horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty together again…"

"Who's Humpty, River? Does he work for this Bellerophon guy?"

Jayne leant back in his chair a bemused expression on his face; it never ceased to amaze him how the nominally normal proceedings of everyday life on Serenity could descend into complete chaos in a matter of seconds. Maybe it was the crew's god-given gift, although the cynical part of his mind was plumping for some sort of social disease being the cause. Maybe, he mused, Serenity was actually a giant psyc experiment, with each and every member of the crew a participant, subject to the whims of a particularly mad and venal mind, for what but such could consciously contrive such a bizarre environment filled with totally alien personalities.

It was Zoë, as was often the case, who brought things to order. With a glare more lethal than the perpetually loaded weapons at her side, she silenced first Wash, then Kaylee, before turning her basilisk-gaze on Jayne – who hadn't actually been talking, engrossed as he was in the process of cleaning his weapons. The mercenary stared back unconcerned, albeit courteously signifying with a nod that he would remain nominally silent; admittedly, this was almost completely motivated by self-interest insofar as being given a choice between discussing their next job, or the contents of his mail with an overgrown magpie cunningly disguised as a mechanic, he'd take the work discussion every time.

The only person, who didn't pay any attention to Zoë, was River, who despite her brother's best efforts to quiet her, continued to sing a combination of nursery rhymes and nonsense vocalisations to herself.

"So, sir," Zoë continued, acting as if River wasn't there, "tell us about this job."

"Sir Warrick set it up for us."

"So it's a legitimate undertaking then?" Simon inquired.

The doctor's inquiry amused Jayne somewhat, as for a wanted fugitive the man was awfully uptight about the legality of their actions; although it was clear to Jayne, as it was to the others, that Simon's ostensibly morality-based opposition to all things illegal was due more to a desperate attempt on the young man's part to cling to some shred of the social respectability he felt he had deserted when he rescued his sister. The fact that the opposite held true, and that his actions with regard to his sister were held to be of the highest moral order by one and all was a thought that never appeared to penetrate his socially-moribund, one-dimensional perspective.

Of course, Jayne mused, it was human nature to focus on the things thought lost instead cherishing those things held in front of them. It was, the man conceded, probably harder in some ways for a person like Simon, who had fallen from a position of wealth and power to one where he held neither. He remembered a phrase from the Shepherd's holy book, something about how it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven and thought that it applied in this instance. Unsurprisingly, he preferred what the Tao, had to say:

_The ancients said, "Accept and you become whole",  
Once whole, the world is as your home._

Until Simon could accept, in his heart, that his previous life was gone, and he stopped trying to grasp hold of the coattails of propriety and righteousness, he would never move forward. In a way, Jayne thought, River was less damaged by events than Simon; certainly she didn't hold her madness before her as an instrument of ongoing self-flagellation.

The captain interrupted Jayne's internal monologue by confirming that it was indeed a legitimate job.

"So what're we doing then?" inquired an excited Wash; ever content in the notion of secure and upright proceedings. Admittedly, the ginger-haired pilot wasn't overly concerned about following the dodgy path, however, he was deeply committed to the idea of home and hearth – especially if it involved a certain ebon-hued Amazon – and following a path of legality appeared to be a safer bet in terms of ensuring that such came about.

Then he, and Zoë, could produce a red-haired ebon horde to play with his dinosaurs.

"Ummmm, I don't know, well not precisely, anyway."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Sir Warrick didn't tell me; he just gave me a contact on Bellerophon and a hefty incentive payment."

"Were there any strawberries in this incentive package?" No one even needed to look to see where that query came from, although the captain did cast a measuring glance in the direction of his mechanic who mumbled something about 'only asking' before directing her attention to a particularly interesting bulkhead rivet.

"So where does this legitimacy thing come into it, Sir?" questioned Zoë, not one to let a potentially important point slip by.

"It's from SIR Warrick," protested Mal, as if stressing the man's title conferred some sort of de facto legitimacy on proceedings.

"Just like those highly legal cattle of his we transported?" noted Jayne, who had finished with Vera and was now slowly working his way through the rest of arsenal; either way, he barely paused in his cleaning to provide a measure of commentary on the not exactly linear association of legitimacy and the Persephonean nobleman's business dealings.

"Just so long as there're no swords involved; Mal doesn't get on with swords," added Inara, enjoying the man's increasing lack of composure as his freshly minted business deal was broken down, piece by piece, by his 'loyal' crew.

"I was defending your virtue, woman," was Mal's tart rejoinder, "and I won."

"You cheated." Inara didn't appear particularly angry about this fact, despite feeling honour-bound to keep the man in his place by pointing it out.

Jayne rolled his eyes and was somewhat surprised to find that multiple variants of the same activity where occurring at various points around the room. "Look, you can have sex later, but the rest of us would kinda like to get back to the matter in hand…Bellerophon…" he added, in case the pheremonally challenged had forgotten.

After a moment taken for the pair to blush, mutter disingenuous denials and then ignore each other, the captain finally composed himself enough to answer the question.

It was either that or shoot his entire crew.

"If y'all have finished editorialising, let's get back on track." Ignoring the stunned silence that greeted that statement, he continued. "Now, we're supposed to go to this planet to meet an associate of Sir Warrick, this person…"

"Does this person have a name?" came the sardonic question from Shepherd Book, "or were we supposed to pick a stranger from the madding crowd at random and hope that they might be this mysterious 'associate'?"

The captain looked at the shepherd askance, "Of course he gave me the contact's name; just how stupid do you…" he paused to glare at the mercenary who appeared to be on the verge of adding a _sotto voce_ editorial "…think I am?"

Jayne, with a sardonic smirk, raised his hand, "Can we take a vote?"

"Keep that up Jayne and I'll vote you off the island."

"You'll what?"

"I'll vote you off the…" he sighed, "never mind…just remember this ship is a one man, one vote entity. I am the man…"

"You have the vote," the crew chorused.

Mal smiled, "So nice to see that you've been paying attention; at least those of you," he said, casting a resigned glance in the direction of Kaylee and Wash who were playing with a pair of Wash's dinosaurs, "who have something resembling an attention span." He continued on before anyone could raise a complaint or, in the case of Zoë, who was very protective of her husband, shoot him.

"…Now," continued the captain, "as I was saying, we head to Bellerophon to meet with this contact, a Mister…" he paused to take a piece of paper from his hip pocket, which he consulted with an angst-ridden expression as he tried to decipher the illegible scrawl that passed for his handwriting "…a Mister Foghorn Leghorn." No. That didn't sound right. He shook his head, before blinking several times in an effort to refocus his vision, he then peered at the paper through slitted eyes, "Sorry, that should be a, Mister Fabian Li-Han; Mister Li-Han is apparently holding something for Sir Warrick and Sir Warrick has engaged us to collect it."

"…And you didn't ask what it is that we're to collect, Sir?" inquired Zoë.

"As I said, I don't rightly know what it is, all I know is that Sir Warrick has paid us good money to collect it, and I do know that, in the past, Sir Warrick has acted in good faith: that's good enough for me. Anyhow, we're not being paid to ask questions."

Inara sighed, "Nothing new there I guess."

"Well, you could always go off whoring if you don't like it, it's not like you actually do anything around here," Jayne noted amiably "other than the captain, that is."

"Jayne," growled Mal, warningly, "what have I said about how you speak to Inara?"

The big man tried to look innocent; an exercise in futility if ever there was one, giving up, he decided that the Cobb equivalent of a sweet smile would have to do. "Nothing that I paid any attention to, Mal."

"Shall I shoot him, Sir?" inquired Zoë, who, while not a card-carrying member of the Companion's fan club, would admit to possessing some small measure of female solidarity, that and her innate sense of loyalty to the captain; irrespective of whether he was being an idiot at that point in time.

"Maybe later, Zoë, we'll see how the mission pans out first, we may need him;" he gave the mercenary a considering look, "even if it's only to supply a body to hide behind if someone starts shooting."

Jayne shrugged, nothing new there. Leaning back in his chair he surveyed the room, most of the group had immediately consigned the previous exchange to the rubbish bin of history, passing it off as yet another chapter in the ongoing skirmishes that comprised the hit-and-run relationship that existed between himself and Inara, with the captain acting as an ongoing, and completely partisan referee. He took a moment to covertly consider the Companion, he didn't, as many of the crew assumed, hate her, although he was prepared to privately admit that his continual attacks on everything that was Inara, from her clothes – was it his fault she dressed like a cross between a dime-store genie and an Indian restaurant lampshade – to her attitude, to just about everything else the woman did, said or thought, probably contributed to people making a fully justified, if wholly inaccurate assumption as to his feelings; what did annoy Jayne, about Inara, was her air of perpetual smugness an all-pervading attitude of inherent superiority; he bet she felt superior washing her underwear, not that that was neither here nor there.

To be fair, he was prepared to admit, having read several articles on the culture, that being a Companion, especially a Companion of Inara's renown, took intense dedication, perseverance and no little intelligence and talent; what it didn't teach, however, at least in Jayne's opinion was humility and an ability to acknowledge the legitimacy of other methods or approaches; in short, it was a path towards a wholly unjustified arrogance.

Jayne's philosophy extended thus; there were two types of arrogance: the first being that you knew – with respect to specific abilities or talents – that you were good and that knowledge informed and influenced your actions by filling you with confidence and self-belief; qualities that were essential to becoming and staying a successful mercenary. The second, however, was a belief that your abilities made you better than those around you and while this, like the first form, influenced your actions it was, in Jayne's experience, a remarkably effective way to get yourself killed. Far too often, during his career, he'd seen young, talented men and women killed because they thought they knew better and as such didn't need to try and understand things differently or at least accept that someone could know something they didn't. He saw a similar arrogance in Inara; and indeed, in all companions. He just hoped he wasn't around when the other shoe dropped, for while it was true that Inara could read people like a book – albeit not an inscrutable Shepherd-type volume – there was a reason why libraries were filled with horror sections; you knew what was around the corner but that didn't stop it coming.

His musings were interrupted by a high-pitched buzzing, which, somewhat inevitably, turned out to be Kaylee doing her patented expression of a mosquito on amphetamines; Jayne wondered what had got her going this time as the doctor appeared to be wearing all his clothes; which, of late, was getting to be a novelty where the two were concerned. This time it appeared that the somewhat excitable mechanic had returned to her immediate topic of inquisition - everyone else's mail.

"So, what'd y'all get?"

The girl was greeted with an almost funereal silence as the various members of the crew worked on appearing intensely interested in anything that wasn't red-haired with a cute upturned nose.

"Aw c'mon guys" Kaylee whined – Jayne felt himself fighting the inclination to send her out to get the newspaper before giving her an old slipper to chew on – "you're no fun, so what'd y'all get. Inara, I bet you got somethin' pretty from an admirer and all…"

Jayne couldn't help himself, he knew it was wrong – and asking for a world of hurt and trouble - but he had to interject, "They're called clients, Kaylee, not admirers, although…" he leered, without much sincerity, in Inara's direction

"Jayne…" growled Mal warningly.

"Not this again" muttered the Shepherd, before raising his voice to address the 'children', "can't you people behave like adults for at least ten minutes? No," he added, holding up his hand in an authoritarian manner "don't answer that." It was unclear to whom he was referring, seeing as how Wash was in the process of offering the man one of his dinosaurs, while the captain, Jayne and Inara continued to glare at each other. "Now, Jayne, stop baiting the captain and his…" clearly the subtext of the conversation had invaded the Shepherd's unconscious; making a moue of disgust at his lack of consideration, he apologised, "Sorry, Inara. Now, as I was saying, can't we all just get along? Or, alternatively, you can all go to your rooms without any supper."

The threat of not being fed synthesised protein wasn't much of an ultimatum seeing as how everyone had just enjoyed several days of real food on-planet. As such, having to miss out on the bio-engineered gloop allowed everyone a slightly longer reprieve before their lingering gastronomic memories were replaced with nightmarish visions of sludge-monsters assaulting their digestive systems; that everyone also had some measure of food-stash secreted about their rooms as a remnant reminder of real food was also a given.

"Actually," continued Book, as he noticed the varying degrees of relief at being offered an excuse not to eat the food, "you can't go to bed until you've eaten your supper."

"You're a hard man, Shepherd," noted the captain as he warily began to eat, ever vigilant for the moment that his meal took exception to his actions and initiated a counterattack. The resignation about the table was palpable, but slowly people's thoughts turned to what was on their plates, and eventually, a measure of normal dinner conversation resumed; normal, that is, by the standards of Serenity; anywhere else in polite society would have seen the group, ejected, barred and probably arrested if not committed. Even impolite society and the gruesome manifestation of 'feeding time' subscribed to by the Reavers would have looked askance at what passed for normal dinner conversation amongst the crew.

Of course the enforced détente imposed by the Shepherd could only last so long; that it lasted for all of ten minutes gave testament to the horror that was posing as dinner rather than any terror evinced by the word of Book.

Inevitably, it was Kaylee - being Kaylee - who couldn't help herself, and she began to badger people about their mail. To be fair to Kaylee, she wasn't asking out of an inherent desire to be nosy or intrude, instead her curiosity about what people had received stemmed from her closeness to her own family and the excitement and anticipation that familial contact brought.

Somewhat surprisingly, given her usual reticence with regard to personalissues, it was, Zoë who responded first, albeit taking a swipe at Mal in preface. "Well, I think the captain here got another account from the power company. They seem to love him so, for all that they follow him about the 'verse with a perseverance that would be almost heart-warming if it were a dog." she smiled sweetly at her friend; "how much do you owe now, Sir?"

"About the current exchange price for a smart-mouthed second-in-command, I think; but I'd be willing to take less if only to remove the burden and to ensure a quick sale. Admittedly," he added sententiously "I'd have to advise any potential purchaser that the goods were temperamental, somewhat wilful and displayed definite violent tendencies, which would probably result in a somewhat lower price. However, you do have good teeth, don't you Zoë?"

"All the better to eat you with, Sir."

"Hey!" protested Wash, "if there's any eating being done by my wife, I'll be the eatee thank you very much; anything else wouldn't be proper."

Mal shrugged, who was he to become a husband and wife. "Just saying is all Wash, you could get a healthy price though."

Before Wash could begin to think abut how many dinosaurs he might be able to acquire as a trade-in, the ebon fighter moved to return the conversation somewhat in the direction of it's original intent. "Now, Kaylee, in answer to your question, I received a letter from my brother telling me about his new daughter; so I'm an aunty again. How many's that now husband?"

"Three. I think."

"…He also asked me when I'm going to make him an uncle; do you have any thoughts on that, husband…"

"Not currently my love, and did I mention that I got another dinosaur?"

Zoë smiled with refined malevolence, and no little affection, at her beloved's clumsy attempt to circumvent the topic. "Nice try husband, we'll discuss this later." It was uncertain whether the woman's tone bespoke impending violence or impending nephew-generating practise.

Wash shrugged, either way it would end up as nephew-generating practise. It was apparent that everybody else was also aware of this fact.

"Well try and keep it down this time, I need my sleep."

"Just for that, Jayne, we'll put it on the intercom."

"Fine, if you're going to do that just make sure that you choose some tasteful background music, if I have to listen to that wind-chime-and-flute shit that was echoing through the ship the other day I'll slash my own wrists."

"That was composed by one of the greatest of all Companions," defended Inara hotly, ever prepared to leap to the defence her order at any insult, real or imagined, "although, if you're really going to slash your wrists I'll loop it and put it on eternal playback."

It wasn't just Jayne who visibly winced.

"With all due respect Inara, that music sounds like the wind whistling through an abandoned outhouse, I'd be much obliged if your forewent the pleasure of inflicting…sorry, subjecting…" the Shepherd was rapidly running out of adjectives in his search for a relatively non-offensive description "…let's go with gifting us with a repeat performance."

"If that's your definition of a gift padre, then I'm fairly certain we're all getting coal for Christmas."

Before Inara could respond, Kaylee seized on the mercenary's last statement, "What do you mean by coal, Jayne; ain't no coal on board Serenity."

Jayne's voice took on a didactic tone as he lapsed into what the crew was beginning to recognise as his teacher mode; it had become rapidly apparent to one and all over the previous few weeks that the man's seeming ignorance belied a memory more akin to the bastard mating of a computer mainframe and a tar-pit than anything that was naturally occurring. "It's part of the Christmas folklore from the Earth-That-Was, Kaylee. Good children received presents in their stockings, whilst children who were bad received a lump of coal."

"Oh." Kaylee gazed imploringly at the Companion, "you wouldn't give me a lump of coal for Christmas would you, Inara?" Inara, caught hopelessly between anger at the universal dismissal of her order's music, which despite loyalty to the code and all that was, she had to secretly admit, pretty horrific and bemused affection at the naiveté of her friend, said nothing.

Later that evening, after the majority of the crew had retired – fortunately, not to the strains of Inara's latrine music - Jayne found himself alone at the galley table. While it wasn't his usual practise to remain in the general areas of the ship, at least not voluntarily, the fact that everyone else was somewhere else caused him to reassess his usual practise. Truth be told, he hadn't felt like remaining in his cabin perhaps a remnant of being so recently planet-side, so, after a quick detour to acquire some suitable reading material, he had returned to the galley and sat in peaceful contemplation of Lao Tzu's wisdom.

He was enjoying the silence; it was companionable, almost like a friend in its quiet acceptance, certainly it didn't raise a voice in judgement or expectation, which was something that tried his patience in other quarters. Taking a moment to reflect on the events of the evening, he smiled wryly to himself: in all his years of travelling, he had never met a group of people as frustrating to deal with and as argumentative as the crew of Serenity. He silently opined to the aether that at any given time half the crew could probably be found arguing with the wind, whilst the others debated with the tide; more bizarre still, his money, if a bet had been laid, would have been on the crew winning insofar as both wind and tide would have fled, metaphorical hands clapped to ostensible ears.

"The winds know; they are everywhere."

Jayne started, he had thought himself alone. "Dammit girl, do you just appear out of thin air, teeth first?

River rewarded her large companion with an amused smile "Do I look like a striped purple cat?"

"It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest."

"Ahhh yes, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Including turning yourself into a purple, stripped cat?"

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see."

"So you are a purple, striped cat?"

"It gives me something to do when I'm not mad." The abrupt change in River's tone shook Jayne somewhat; in an instant she had snapped from lunacy to lucidity. "Poor Jayne," she smiled, "always prepared to expect the worst then wonders what to do when it hits him over the head."

Narrowing his eyes dangerously, Jayne glared a girl who, but a mere slip, could kill him in a heartbeat "It's not the expectation at issue, irrespective of whether you're acting sane or mad, you're still mad…"

"…We're all mad here…"

"Stop that," he snapped, "the issue is whether you can control it, the madness that is. I think you can, but I think you don't want to; I think you prefer hiding behind it."

The glance River gave Jayne would have brought a lesser man to his knees so filled was it with a mixture of pain, self-loathing and anger, but what was worse, at least from Jayne's perspective, was the inherent knowingness held by a kindred spirit "We know each other Jayne Cobb, would that we did not," this was tinged with sadness, "but consider, does knowing bring understanding or contempt?"

Regarding the girl, no, Jayne decided, the woman, for her attitude and poise deemed her thus, he turned to a page in the book he had been reading. "I'm not one to preach, I'll leave that particular delusion to the Shepherd, but listen." He returned his gaze to the page and began to read aloud, the pure, clear tones of his reading voice a striking contrast to his usual rumbling inflection:

"_The Way flows and ebbs, creating and destroying,  
Implementing all the world, attending to the tiniest details,  
Claiming nothing in return._

_It nurtures all things,  
Though it does not control them;  
It has no intention,  
So it seems inconsequential._

_It is the substance of all things;  
Though it does not control them;  
It has no exception,  
So it seems all-important._

_The sage would not control the world;  
He is in harmony with the world."_

"Your way is not the only way, Jayne."

"No," Jayne agreed, "But the way is always there, you just have to find the expression of the way that best suits you." Closing his book, he stood, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll retire." With that, the mercenary turned on his heel and merged with the darkness as he exited the room.

River sat, staring into the enveloping darkness, which had just swallowed the man, her expression pensive; "I am the way," she whispered, "but my direction is unclear." Letting her head fall to the table she closed her eyes and dreamt.

The trip to Bellerophon took the better part of two weeks, not because the planet was especially distant from Persephone, but rather because Sir Warrick hadn't imputed any particular urgency to the mission and, as such, Serenity, under Wash's steady hand, had taken her time; as the captain saw it, there was no need to waste valuable fuel on fast burns and thrusters when there wasn't any need, and considering how the particular part of space they were travelling in was peaceable and relatively secure – if one discounted overly-anal retentive Alliance captains – there wasn't the usual requirement of being ready to run away at a moment's notice.

This wasn't to suggest that all things were bright and shiny, it was simply a case of the ever-outward expansion of the core making the necessity of ensuring peaceful space a political one rather than something that could be engendered by empty words and a controlled media service.

Even the Reavers, generally not known for their comprehension skills, got the hint; although, as some wit suggested on the entertainment waves, it wasn't as if they would look good in that seasons fashion colours. That pronouncement had earnt a growl from Mal, and a suggestion delivered to the Gods that he'd be right proud to introduce the, no-doubt overdressed, fop to a real, live Reaver; he was only halted in his rant by a disgruntled Kaylee, who informed Mal that he was interrupting her programme.

"Don't rightly see why you'd want to be hearing how they prettify themselves on the Core, Kaylee, it's not as if you get a whole lot of opportunity to go to the ball, and," he added with a sardonic note, "after what happened last time, I'm not so sure as we'd wanting to go to the ball."

"I don't see why not," came the tart rejoinder, "I was doin' just fine until you had to get your knickers in a twist over who was twisting Inara's knickers."

"It weren't right him treatin' her like a whore an' all."

"Isn't that just a tad inconsistent, Mal, I mean here you are constantly calling Inara a whore an' then you get all upset-like when someone else does it."

"Seems perfectly reasonable if you ask me."

Kaylee sighed, this was a topic of conversation that was destined to go nowhere, there were blind spots and there were blind spots and then was the gaping hole in rational thought and logic that represented the captain's relationship with the Companion. "Anyway Mal, I'd be perfectly happy to go to the ball again, in fact, I had plenty of gentleman admirers asking to call upon me at a later date."

"Kaylee, they're just wanting an excuse to look at your engines."

The woman's smile was lascivious and left Mal with absolutely no doubt as to what her intentions were towards any gentleman caller were; Kaywinnet Lee Frye may have appeared the innocent coquette, but Mal was never, ever going to forget the circumstances under which they met "Well captain, I'm plenty happy to demonstrate just how much thrust my engines can produce."

Mal held up his hands in surrender, "Enough, no more puns like that, please, cease and desist."

Kaylee simply smiled sweetly and returned her attention to her fashion broadcast.

In other parts of the ship similar conversations, sited in boredom and camaraderie – and not Kaylee's fashion urges and sexual proclivities - were the norm; it was one of the inevitabilities of being trapped on a spaceship, there were only so many places one could go, and eventually, a degree of cabin fever was bound to set in; the usual indicator being about the time Wash started taking his dinosaurs for walks about the cargo area. The other by-product of cabin fever was that it resulted in some unusual social permutations, insofar as even one's most loathed companion appeared somewhat more interesting than usual when the alternative was staring at the same walls for an indeterminate period. Thus it was, one 'morning' that Inara chanced upon Jayne, training in the cargo area.

The mercenary had been training for a solid hour and had built up a healthy sweat, which glistened off his rippling muscles; Inara, ever the connoisseur of flesh, paused appreciatively to take in the sight for, even if she didn't like the man, she was prepared to admit he was a fine physical specimen. Further still, she was prepared to admit, that with a body like that – she steeled herself against inappropriate thoughts – Jayne would have made a fine companion, at least on a sexual level and only if he could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut. She shuddered internally; the man was just so…so…uncouth.

"You finished staring yet?"

The sound of a shattered reverie could be heard tinkling upon the deck as the fractured shards split asunder beneath Jayne's blunt observation.

Inara sighed, all but failing to hide the dismissive superiority in her tone "You have such a way with words, don't you."

"Why waste several sentences on a straightforward observation? If you want felicity and flowery speeches you're in the wrong place," Jayne arched an eyebrow wryly," although if you give me a minute I can hustle off to my cabin and get my Shakesepare, then I can compare you to a Summer's day…or, mayhap, a triffid."

"What's a triffid?"

"Plant. Kills people. Eats the decomposing flesh."

"You'd compare me to a plant such as that?"

"Merely a recognition that not everything is necessarily as it seems. I'm well aware, for example, that Companion training is not just about the subtle arts of conversation, seduction and, if you'll excuse the banality, screwing. Some of the greatest Companions in history have been spies, terrorists and even assassins; I'm well aware, that there's more to you than superficial decoration. Tell me," he continued, "Why did you let Mal fight that duel for you? You were more than capable of dealing with that pissant by yourself."

Inara shrugged, not bothering to deny the mercenary's statements as to the publicly non-disclosed aspects of Companion training. "Firstly, as you're probably aware, the darker side – if you will – of the Companion arts is to be used only on designated missions, they are not to be used for personal gain, to do so results in expulsion from the order, sometimes execution. Secondly, it suited my purposes to let the captain play the hero; what harm? He was more than capable of dealing with, as you so aptly described it, a pissant like Atherton Wing."

"…And what if the captain had been killed?"

The companion shrugged indifferently, "Then so be it."

"That's a strange attitude for someone who spends a fair proportion of her spare time fluttering around the man in a fashion akin to a moth dancing about a candle flame."

Inara coolly acknowledged the point. "It is true that I feel a degree of attraction to Mal, an attraction that is obviously, if ineptly, returned. However, my role, while allowing me to retain a degree of emotion, affection if you like, towards someone, doesn't permit attachment. If the captain had died, whilst it would be regrettable, and I would, in some part, grieve, there would be no lasting resonance."

"Have you ever heard the phrase, 'The lady doth protest too much?'"

"Yes, although I find it inapplicable in this instance."

Jayne smiled archly, "Thereby proving the point."

Inara neither acceded to, nor denied the charge; she did however regard the mercenary with a measuring gaze, a gaze that was clearly all business and held no part of the alluring siren usually on display. "Alright Jayne, considering all the analysis you've just subjected me to, what's with the bullshit attitude towards me around everybody else."

"Bullshit?" The man feigned ignorance.

"Don't give me that," she snapped, "you're well able to deduce the context of the anachronism, especially," she continued with an edge of humour, "in consideration of our latter propensity for transporting livestock; but I digress. Clearly, you're well aware of some of the wider functions of the Companion order so it makes little sense for you to play up to the perception of the stereotype."

Jayne shrugged, before casting a measuring glance over the woman's lush curves "It amuses me to do so," he rumbled, "and, it works nicely as a distraction; can't pay too much attention to me if they're defending you. Anyway, I don't particularly like you, you're dishonest "

"You confess to misdirection as a lifestyle and you call me dishonest?"

"I'm honest with myself; anything else is meaningless without that; not," he added, "that I'd expect you to understand. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have heavy pieces of metal to lift up and down."

Not pausing to see the woman's reaction, Jayne resumed his workout, the rhythmic exhalation a counterpoint to the controlled movements. The companion watched the man for a moment, a retort dying breathless on her lips, before she too, turned, and moved off towards her shuttle, her face pensive.

It had been a long two weeks, perhaps not the longest two weeks in recorded history, but certainly long enough for the crew to be truly sick of the sight of each other. There had been a level of sniping and essential unpleasantness at the heart of their interactions that was unusual, even by Serenity's standards, especially in consideration of the fact it usually took three times as long before the various members of the crew began serious internal debates as to whether it would be really, truly that bad if they gave in to their homicidal tendencies just this once.

Of all on board, the pair least affected by the simmering levels of discontent were Zoë and Wash, of course if things got too tense around the others they could always wander off to their bunk and screw like bunnies; an option not readily available to the others although that did nothing to lessen the almost omnipresent levels of sexual tension that hovered around the various recesses of the ship, as if some vast pheromone-dispensing insect was doing everything in its power to infect the atmosphere; even the Shepherd had taken to donning an expression that spoke to a level of frustration that had nothing to do with spirituality.

The heart of the dissonance was Inara, although this was not to suggest that it was her fault.

The fault was indisputably Jayne's, although to be fair to the man, there had been neither intent nor malice in his actions…

…Well there might have been a smidgeon of malice, but it was the timeworn malice of familiarity not the venomous serpent of sadism that informed his deeds, however the piquancy, and indeed the accuracy, of his comments left Inara in a position where she felt honour-bound to defend, at least in her own mind, the practises of the Companion order, yet, in another, intensely female, part of her psyche, she wanted to prove that she was also a woman…

…Not that the rest of the crew had had any doubt, previously, currently, nor, when taking into consideration what she'd started to wear to the dinner table, any time into the distant future.

Of course, if Inara's intention had been to prove a point to Jayne, then she'd failed miserably, unless the intended outcome of said point was to have the mercenary continually snickering into his meals. If, however, the Companion's intention had been to drive the captain to distraction, she'd succeeded admirably, if his inability to feed himself properly when she was in his presence was any indication – although, that could simply have been an autonomic response to the proximity of the food with the body taking immediate steps to preserve its integrity.

The other indirect effect of Inara's campaign was that Kaylee began to develop a series of distinctly unwholesome ideas involving Simon Tam; admittedly, such ideas were probably already present, in protean form, in the woman's mind, but the ongoing sight of Inara dressed in what could only be unimaginatively described as 'whore-wear' ignited a slow-burning fuse. What also became clear that these thoughts were so intense that they generated the power to be transmitted telepathically – either that or River was playing a practical joke on her brother - if the doctor's reactions were to be judged correctly. Certainly, he perspired heavily, glancing around frequently like a buffet-lo visiting the local carnivores' watering hole and continually looked everywhere except, to the woman's intense frustration, at Kaylee.

Jayne was fairly certain Kaylee was about to hurl herself over the mess table at the doctor. He was equally certain that the doctor was going to do a remarkably adept impression of an exceptionally fast quadruped; just who would eventually win would have made a good wager, except there was no one around to bet with as Wash and Zoë were entertaining each other, Mal was avoiding Inara and River was avoiding the Shepherd's hair; thus Jayne contented himself with reading his books and staying out of the way.

Finally, the announcement came down from Wash, who had taken to hiding in the cockpit when he wasn't with Zoë, that they were nearing Bellerophon and that, unless something went horribly wrong – which, all things considered, was more than likely – they would land in an hour.

The universal sense of relief was palpable.

If anything was truly indicative of the state of mind of Serenity's crew, it was that they had all gathered in the loading bay such was their eagerness to disembark. This was relatively unusual insofar as Inara tended to take her shuttle off independently once landing had been completed and Simon was usually found doing a last-minute stock assessment of the med-bay in order to ascertain precisely what needed to be scrounged at any given opportunity; however, as only two weeks had passed since the last landfall provisions were still nigh on fully stocked.

Even Kaylee had been pried from the heart of her beloved engine room and, most atypically, a ship-wide search had not been initiated to first find, and then lever out, River from whichever particular bowel of the ship she'd decided to wedge herself into in order to escape the omnipresent ministrations, castigations and convulsive hand-wringing of her brother. On one occasion, Jayne had been heard to ask the doctor if, on top of the fact that his sister was insane an' all, she came with instructions not to expose her to direct sunlight, such was the way he carried on. At the time, Simon had snorted dismissively at the hulking, unlettered Neanderthal, although River, quite clearly understanding Jayne's reference, had smirked in amusement

Wash had set the Firefly class ship down just outside of Bellerophon's main town - a place named somewhat inauspiciously, Medusa - with his usual finesse; that is, everyone continued arguing as they hadn't realised they'd hit the ground. It was only as the loading bay door began to lower, and people were exposed to the first rays of non-artificial light in a fortnight, that they ceased their incessant bickering and prepared to move out.

The light was blinding.

"Well Sir," noted Zoë, sardonically, as she strode across what appeared to be a stretch of incredibly pure silica sand, "it's quite bright."

Mal shrugged, "I noticed that myself. Make sure everyone's got goggles, not point get flare-blind and wandering off into the desert. Although," he noted, "if Jayne wants to wander off in that direction, don't be stopping him none, wouldn't want to interfere and all."

"Right you are, Sir."


	7. Ridin' in my car

_I nearly gave up on this. _

_Actually, I nearly gave upon writing. _

_It's not something I can easily put into words; but, in short, the best way to describe it is that I got disillusioned because I felt that I wasn't communicating my ideas effectively and writing is all about communication. The thing is that it wasn't negative reviews that got to me it was reviews where the reader had clearly missed the point of what I was doing. Obviously, the problem with fanfiction – and playing in another's backyard is that others have legitimate ideas as to what constitutes 'good' or 'okay' – I had to remind myself that my ideas were just as valid and just as worthy._

_Thus, I persevere._

_To those who continue to read and review – good or bad – I thank you. Don't stop, tell me what you think…but expect me to want to discuss it, or use your thoughts - after all, all writers are magpies..._

_

* * *

_

_and you're sinking in the headlights  
and your words all come apart  
and you're falling down forever  
in the wasteland of your heart  
I don't need to touch your future  
I don't need to hold your fear  
I don't need your fucking sympathy when  
I'm a thousand miles away from here  
_**Ashengrace – Coldlight**

**

* * *

**

Several hours had passed since Serenity had landed, time enough for the searing heat of the day to pass and the local approximation of sunset to begin its sluggish approach; as such, the captain decided it was time for himself, Zoë and Jayne – in his obligatory role as hulking menace - to head into town in order to meet with Sir Warrick's ostensible business partner; although, as had been established on the journey from Persephone, the term 'business partner' was, at best, a courtesy, and in all probability a euphemism for the seedier side of commerce, albeit one granted a subtle degree of legitimacy through the _noblesse oblige_ granted by Sir Warrick's title and its associated burden of moral and legal rectitude.

As Zoë and Jayne finished prepping the Mule neither of them paid too much attention to the slowly attenuating glare from outside. On landing, the crew had taken a few moments to familiarise themselves with their immediate area before the suffocating heat and blinding glare from the sun as it beat down on the glassy silica sands drove them, _en masse_, back inside.

"Damn glad to be seein' that sun go down," noted Jayne, his attention firmly fixed on a particularly obstreperous piece of binding that wouldn't sit right.

"As well you might, considering as how the captain was all fired up on sending you out for groceries earlier on."

The mercenary grinned, albeit somewhat mirthlessly "You keep tellin' me things like that and I'll get to thinking that Mal don't love me no more."

"Well I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings," lied Zoë blandly, her attention, like Jayne's, fixed more on what she was doing than the person with whom she was conversing.

"Of course you wouldn't, heaven forefend that such an event should come to pass," finally the binding snapped into place, "you done?"

"I am," she answered gravely, I'll go grab the captain and we can head off into the sunset."

"How romantic, I won't tell Wash if you won't."

"You're too kind," murmured Zoë as she strode away.

On consideration, the term 'sunset' wasn't a term that could be considered strictly accurate in consideration of the fact that Bellerophon had three suns and a supremely erratic orbit; as such, the closest the planet came to 'true' darkness was a rather unsettled, murky twilight in-between the various risings, settings and general intransigence of the various solar entities that the planet claimed as its own. From the perspective of those who lived on Bellerophon, and whose bloodlines didn't run to salamander genetics, most days of the year had, mercifully, only two suns malevolently blazing overhead at a given moment with the third, either occluded by the planet or, off visiting relatives or whatever it was that suns did when they weren't busy making desert. Generally speaking, however, two suns on active duty were usually more than enough to produce conditions that could be considered somewhat uncomfortable; on those special occasions when the suns' and the planet's orbit maliciously colluded, and all three stars were in evidence, conditions went from somewhat uncomfortable to downright unpleasant and it was only the mentally disenfranchised who voluntarily ventured outside…

…And visiting Alliance officers who saw fit to make one too many imperial proclamations pertaining to Bellerophon's correct placement in the natural order of planetary hierarchies: although the correct use of the verb in those particular instances was usually 'staked' not ventured.

Jayne took a moment to relax, leaning against the mule while he waited for Zoë to collect the captain from whatever he was doing. Of course it was entirely possible that the 'what' could have been 'who' seeing as how he and Inara had been keeping particularly close company of late. Student of human nature he may have been, as was any mercenary worth their salt, but even Jayne was prepared to admit that when it came to attempting to decipher the internal machinations that comprised the web of human relationships – especially those on Serenity - he was completely in the dark. In fact, it was that palpable, and admittedly, wilful, ignorance that had caused him to remain, much to the distress of him mother who wanted more grandkids (dammit), a confirmed bachelor for as long as he had.

Sex was fine. Jayne understood sex. Sex was about the mutually consenting exchange of bodily fluids. Emotions and feelings weren't bodily fluids, and unlike bodily fluids they didn't obey the laws of physics; in fact, the only thing about feelings and emotions that seemed to bear some relation to physical laws was that when the shit hit the fan at four times normal speed there was sixteen times the amount of collateral damage. Jayne wasn't a fan of collateral damage, be it through proximity, association or, god forbid, intent. It was bad enough, he'd decided - amidst the ongoing soap opera that was Serenity - being in close proximity to the continual emotional ructions, dramas and bad-hair days that passed for normal, social interaction; he'd be damned if he'd voluntarily submit to such things in a greater capacity.

Deciding that his current line of thought was neither, particularly interesting, productive or, for that matter, edifying, the mercenary turned his thoughts to the trip into the city centre to make contact with Sir Warrick's business acquaintance. Personally, he couldn't see why he was being dragged along. While he understood the necessity of retaining some sort of armed presence – be it offensive, defensive or pre-emptive -, Zoë was already going and, to his way of thinking, this negated the necessity of having him along to play the hulking brute; especially, if one believed the sketchy information the Persephonean noble had given Mal, as there wasn't expected to be any trouble.

He snorted in amused self-recrimination at that last thought; since when, especially once he'd taken up with Serenity, had an expectation of anything turned out to bear even the slightest resemblance to reality; especially trouble.

If nothing else, however, Jayne was a professional, and once he'd learnt of their destination he'd done some surreptitious research on the planet and its inhabitants in order to compile as accurate a threat assessment as he could for, as innocuous as the mission presented itself to be, Jayne was no fan of being unexpectedly shot, knifed or otherwise endangered and he therefore prepared for any, even the most unlikely, eventuality. What little information he'd been able to discover on Bellerophon with the limited time and resources he'd had available, indicated that the planet was about as dangerous as an episode of the Teletubbies (including the weird one with the handbag) although, like all seemingly innocuous things, Bellerophon had a sting in its soft, fluffy tail.

Bellerophon had started out, as a lot of non-core worlds had, as a traders' outpost used to support the expansion of civilisation rim-ward; unlike many such worlds, however, Bellerophon hadn't required any terraforming, at least not to make it habitable to humans; terraforming would certainly have helped make it infinitely more bearable, but it was (technically) habitable. As there had been no requirement for massive infrastructural investment from the Core, the population, such as it was at the time, had never developed a mentality of dependence – especially financial - on Core generosity and, as the planet was fortuitously situated at what would eventually become one of the major trading nexuses, it meant that it didn't fall victim, as many other worlds did, to paying exorbitant fees, tariffs and taxes to the various trading consortia in order to survive.

All in all, Bellerophon liked its independence.

Not, however, that much independence, for when the Independents came calling, Bellerophon's governing council, with all due acknowledgement to diplomatic language, told them to fuck off. They weren't much more polite to the Alliance either. Although the failure to engage diplomatically didn't stop the powers-that-be on Bellerophon from allowing both sides use of the planet's facilities for restocking and refuelling; after all, business was business and, as the planet's population judged things, turmoil was bad for business, an attitude, which was best summed up by the planet's poet laureate who famously noted that: 'They can take that shit somewhere else.'

Thus Bellerophon had become a trader's haven where anything, and everything, was for sale for, of course, a price. However, unlike other trader worlds, which were little better than wretched hives of scum and villainy, Bellerophon took a path that was the epitome of a spirit level in its even handed rigidity and complete lack of tolerance for anything that even resembled criminal activity. Certainly, there was a degree of discrete customer fleecing and mild price gouging, but that, at least according to the Bellerophon Chamber of Commerce, was standard business practise, anything, however, that even hinted at the illicit, the injurious or the down-right illegal was frowned upon for while the short term profits may have shown potential the overriding effect on planetary reputation was bad for business.

The poet laureate had something to say about that too; "Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once."

Considering Serenity's unfortunate predilection – despite the best intentions in the 'verse - for falling into situations that could be considered less than completely virtuous, Jayne also decided to review the local judicial code…just in case. What he found was disturbing, for the closest analogy he could draw, in his understanding of crime and punishment on Bellerophon, was with equine medicine where the (almost) universal solution was to 'shoot the horse', although in the case of Bellerophon, 'stake naked in the sun' replaced the more humane option of simply shooting the transgressor.

This left Jayne in the unusual position of deciding that it was best if he did indeed go along, if only to keep the captain out of trouble; although, he was prepared to admit, that Bellerophon's strictly non-partisan approach to business meant that even the most ardent partisan was likely to be extremely well behaved. Nonetheless, he made a mental note to mention his findings to Zoë, who could bring it up with Mal; he couldn't quite see Mal swallowing the notion of Jayne going along to keep him out of trouble. Jayne mentally shrugged, it was entirely possible that his concern wasn't necessary, and that the captain had discovered this information himself, Mal might have made stubbornness a performance art but he was relatively competent - all things considered.

The sound of approaching boots splintered the delicate framework of his reverie and turning, he spied Zoë and the captain making their way across the gantry from the crew quarters. The captain's appearance was one of dishabille and Jayne rolled his eyes, yep, definitely a case of who, not what.

"Ready to go, Jayne?"

"No, I just thought I'd stand here."

"Well, I guess it's good that you're able to master basic concepts and physical principles, but I don't remember paying you to imitate a mannequin, irrespective of how good you might be at it."

"Mannequin's more attractive, Sir," added Zoë, helpfully; her eye's betraying a malicious twinkle.

"That little man of yours not satisfyin' you Zoë? It's a sad thing to be resorting to admiring shop dummies."

"At least my shop dummy is breathing, which is more than can be said for those pictures taped to your wall. Tell me Jayne, does Vera come with another set of attachments we don't know about?"

"Why? Do you want to borrow her sometime?"

By this point, Mal was starting to look slightly sick. Not disgusted as, for all that he had a wide streak of vanilla running through him, he was not of a judgemental character, but there were certain things about his crew he'd really rather not be party to; girlish infatuations with doctors he could handle, the interoperability and potential attachments to Jayne's weapon, was something he would really rather not consider.

He paused for a moment and mentally confirmed that he had indeed asked himself whether he had really thought about the handling of Jayne's weapon and shuddered; some things really didn't bear thinking about. Ever. Fortunately, for Mal's continued sanity, Zoë chose that moment to fire up mule and the roar of the transport coming to life shook loose the last vestiges of the unwanted images from his conscious mind.

"Hey Mal? You comin'?" Jayne was lazing insouciantly on the back seat of the mule the only thing missing from his air of repose being an oversized cigar and a multi-coloured drink with a novelty umbrella.

"Yeah, sorry, I got distracted…"

"…And who could blame you, Sir?" came the _sotto voce_ comment from his right as his second-in-command dropped the clutch and moved the mule out of the loading bay.

"Shut up Zoë, or I'll tie you to the mule and make you run. Jayne?"

"Uh?"

"Did you bring some grenades?"

"I thought you didn't like grenades?"

"I've grown fond of them in my old age, now answer the question, did you bring some grenades?"

The mercenary looked somewhat evasive, "Maybe."

"Yes or no."

"Maybe."

"Are you not hearin' me rightly?"

"Oh I'm hearing you rightly, Captain, I'm just not entirely sure what I'm hearin'. Last time I wanted to bring grenades along on a trip I got chapter and verse on how it was unnecessary and then these Reavers turned up…"

"Jayne!" came the exasperated mutter, "Do you have any hand grenades? Yes or no, and if you don't answer me I'll toss you off the back of the mule and you can join Zoë."

"Best of luck with that, Sir," added Zoë, not taking her eyes from the terrain in front of the mule, which, for all it's ostensible smoothness, was proving to be a series of undulating mesas, dunes and ravines.

Jayne sighed, "Fine, I have one or two grenades with me, but what are you expecting me to do with them, as I don't imagine this is a favoured holiday spot for the local Reaver community."

"I think he's getting paranoid in his old age."

"Who're you calling old, Zoë?"

The woman merely smiled and kept her eyes on the 'road'. "Sorry, Sir, you're not old…"

"…For all that he complains like a Jewish grandmother. You'd better be careful Zoë, or he'll start asking why you couldn't marry a nice Doctor instead of a _meshuge_ pilot with no future; come to think of it, we have a nice doctor. Actually, no, we have Simon the _yente_, but close enough to make the point."

Mal ignored the pair of them.

Somewhat surprisingly, the rest of the relatively brief journey into town passed in something that could be said to approximate companionable silence, certainly, there wasn't much in the way of scenery to promote discussion unless, that is, you were a major fan of sand.

The primary population centres of Bellerophon had, almost universally, been constructed about one of the massive oases that littered the planet, virtually everything else was desert with the odd smattering of brush, scrub and stunted goblin forest to break the panoramic vastness of the dunes. While it was true that they had parked – as it were – Serenity just outside of town, just outside was a relative concept defined in part by how great the likelihood of them having to run away was; while they didn't anticipate any problems on Bellerophon, that didn't mean that they were prepared to land on the local equivalent of the town hall and expect a universally warm welcome.

Eventually, the sand and scrub gave way to scatterings of adobe-style dwellings, small single-room buildings, apparently home to sprawling families who were obviously without recourse to the manifest benefits of contraception or the knowledge therein. More than likely, Jayne mused, the local population in such areas were kept poor, ignorant and eternally and somewhat inevitably, pregnant; it didn't matter where you went in the 'verse, there was always an underclass and they provided an economically sustainable workforce. There but for the Grace of God, go I, he thought, conveniently ignoring the fact that Cobb DNA was far too ornery to ever accept such a position on life's wheel; in fact, back at the dawn of time, when most protozoa were happily swimming around in their pool of primordial ooze, the Cobb protozoa was relentlessly looking for a way to clamber out of it's current pool of ooze in order to launch a pre-emptive strike at, and thereby exert dominance over, it's neighbours.

It was a trait that had bred true over the millennia through both time and space.

The shantytown slowly merged into more concentrated areas of housing and where there was a greater proliferation of housing, there were children who, in the manner of children everywhere when presented with something new, swarmed after the mule like a particularly rabid swarm of locusts.

"Careful now Zoë, don't want to run over any of the kids."

"Under control, Sir"

"Don't worry so much Mal, they're small enough to get spat right back out the intake with nary a problem."

Reynolds regarded the mercenary with a levelling glare, "That wasn't quite what I meant, Jayne?"

"How about I use one of those grenades you asked me to bring along; wouldn't be but a smear left and the noise would scare the rest of them away."

"How about we stick a pole up your arse and see if that gets rid of them?"

"That'd be stupid, Mal, they're children, not birds. Anyway, scarecrows don't work that well, even the really noisy ones are only effective for a bit afore the birds get all curious-like and come back to dismember it; I could string Simon up to demonstrate."

"What with all the yokelising, Jayne?" inquired Zoë. "You've spent the last month or so rubbing our noses in the fact that you're not a complete idiot and now your talking like you've married your sister."

Jayne cast an arch eye at Zoë, his expression bemused, "Would you believe that passing through the outskirts of town caused me to reminisce about my upbringing?"

"No."

"How about I'm bored out of my skull and needed some measure of entertainment?"

"Infinitely more probable."

"Now who's showing off their education? Didn't think you knew big words like 'probable'"

"You keep that up, Jayne and I'll probably shoot you."

Jayne sighed dramatically, "Promises, promises."

"No, really, I'll shoot you."

"If you do," noted Mal, "make sure you stop the mule and park it safely, wouldn't do to take your eyes off the road and run over one of the children."

"Yes Sir," Zoë acquiesced.

Jayne rolled his eyes and returned his attention to sandy streets and the omnipresent pack of chasing children. Amongst the press of small bodies there was one, a girl no more than ten or eleven, that stood out, for all that she remained somewhat apart from the others, watching the mule pass with calm, pale blue eyes instead of giving chase in a frenzy of youthful exuberance. There was something in her eyes that Jayne had seen before on many frontier worlds – and in the poorer sections of ostensibly civilised worlds - the look of prematurely assumed responsibility brought on by hardship and a lack of even the most basic luxuries that allowed one to have either a childhood or, in affected adults, some measure of surcease from the daily grind. At least, Jayne thought, no one went hungry any more, modern terraforming and propagation techniques had seen to that; unfortunately, such techniques did nothing about the woeful levels of education, welfare and pretty much anything else that had anything to do with the human condition above a subsistence level that existed on even the most prosperous worlds not directly linked to the core.

Of course endemic greed played a major role in ensuring that such conditions were perpetuated; especially on a neutral, trader world like Bellerophon, although this was not to suggest that the Alliance gave a tinker's damn for the plight of the poor, no matter what their propaganda holos said.

Deciding that musing on the state of the verse's social welfare system was counter-productive and ultimately depressing, Jayne decided to turn his attention to other things.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Will we be there soon?"

"Yes."

"How soon?"

"Very soon."

"…Are we there yet?"

"Zoë? You know how you offered to shoot Jayne?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Now would be a good time."

"Can't do that, Sir, gotta keep my eyes on the road, 'specially seeing as how you don't want me to run over any children."

"I'll make an exception."

"C'mon now Mal, just 'cos you're ticked an' all with me don't mean you get run a bunch of kids over. Imagine what the town council would say."

"Jayne, shut up. Zoë?" and Mal winced as he realised what he was going to ask, "Are we there yet?"

The sound of Jayne's muffled chuckle was in perfect synchronisation with the audible rolling of Zoë's eyes and a quiet muttering about how she should have stayed in bed with the dinosaurs.

Inevitably, the mule moved through, and away from, the press of children and eased into the town proper, a Spanish hacienda-style affair with a preponderance of white-stuccoed walls that created an effect ever more blinding than the sands of the desert.

"Ain't these people ever heard of contrast?" murmured Jayne, distinctly unimpressed by the uniform tones of the surrounding architecture, "Hell, I'd even settle for a surrealist's impression of a Hawaiian shirt over this blandness, this" he gestured broadly to encompass all and sundry "is worse than Kaylee's attempts at prettifyin' that reconstituted protein we had for dinner last…"

Zoë looked dubious, "I wouldn't go that far, Jayne, Kaylee's recipes come straight out of the Gourmet Torturers Handbook."

The mercenary grimaced humourlessly, "Yes, I remember: 'The hearty man ate a condemned breakfast'. Well, to give the girl her due, if she' trying to poison us she's doing a good job of hiding it; either that, or she's as inept a poisoner as she is a cook, which, when you think about it is almost oxymoronic enough to constitute a superpower in its own right."

"Leave Kaylee alone," growled Mal, "she does her best, which is more than can be said for the pair of you when it's your turn to cook. Now Kaylee's cookin' might be somewhat haphazard, but I've never seen the Shepherd pray for mercy instead of grace at something she's put in front of him, Jayne; and as for you, Zoë, I thought you'd almost scared River sane last time you 'cooked', and I use that word only with the broadest possible interpretation of your having subjected some innocent protein by-product to a heat source of some description."

"You're a fine one to talk, I've never seen you cook at all."

"Rank or, more properly, ownership of the ship hath its privileges."

"I think we're here, Sir." Zoë interrupted.

It appeared the woman was correct, for the mule, under her careful guidance, was pulling into what could easily have been the town square; at least it looked that way as a large square space was surrounded by multi-story buildings each, like every other damn building on the planet, blindingly stuccoed in white. What really imparted the idea that this area was the town square, however, was the disgustingly ornate statue-cum-fountain placed – or more correctly dumped, and probably from a great height - in the middle of things. Jayne wasn't sure what he disapproved of more, the fact that a desert planet lent itself to a gratuitous waste of precious water or, that the alleged artist, who'd been commissioned to design the whole affair, was obviously related to the head of the commissioning committee if the complete lack of talent on display was anything to go by. In fact, Jayne thought, as he considered the monstrosity with healthy disdain, he hadn't seen anything so graceless since the time Wash had thumped Simon at chess and the over-bred doctor spluttered and stuttered with excuses and rationalisations for his loss.

The mercenary took a moment to castigate himself for the pettiness of his feelings towards the doctor; irrespective of whether of not the man was an in-bred, over-dressed prig, he was a very good doctor, even if he couldn't find his arse with both hands, a map and a flashlight. That he was able to find other people's various veins, arteries and other physiological accoutrements without encountering similar problems was a constant source of wonder for Jayne. Jayne also paused to give consideration to the teachings of the Tao, which said to accept not judge. He sighed. Sometimes he wished the Tao taught that shooting anyone who disturbed your inner equilibrium was an acceptable substitute for meditation and acceptance; however, such a position, would have made interpersonal relationships, especially on as confined a space as Serenity, somewhat difficult. It would also have, inevitably, resulted in having no one left to fly the ship, fix the ship or, generally perform any of the functions required to get the Firefly class entity from Point A to Point B. He did wonder though, albeit very privately and somewhat churlishly, precisely how screwing your way across the 'verse worked to the ship's advantage, maybe, he opined, Kaylee had wired Inara's bed to the fuel cells, to act as a manual, back-up generator. Finally, he shrugged, he knew that Inara's Companion contacts oft-times allowed the ship to acquire port in places that would normally not have touched such a ramshackle affair, he wasn't, however, feeling particularly charitable seeing how his inner equilibrium had been seriously disturbed by the abomination in the town square; maybe, he thought, he could track down the sculptor and kill them as a form of religious penance for his uncharitable thoughts towards his colleagues.

"Architecture's not too excitin', Sir", commented Zoë, as she climbed down from the mule.

"Don't much remember you havin' an interest in architecture, Zoë," noted the captain.

"She does when it involves counting how many potential sniper positions and sight-lines happen to be convergin' on where you happen to be," Jayne turned his attention to the black woman who was, under the surreptitious cover of ostensibly unloading the mule, was carefully surveying their position, "what'd'ya make it Zoë? I've got at least fifteen."

"At least," she replied, as her eyes flickered from position to position with a professional's precision, "the whole place was designed to be a killin' ground and the space between my shoulder blades is getting' more than a mite itchy just standing here."

"Ain't you been just a bit paranoid, people here got no reason to be shootin' at us."

"Wasn't aware people had any reason to be shootin' at us before, Sir, didn't stop it happenin' though."

"Don't forget Unification Day, Zoë." Jayne noted.

"Right, sorry. Wasn't aware people had any reason to be shootin' at us before, except on Unification Day…"

"…And then there were those cattle…"

"…I thought that was a sword…"

"…No, those rustlers, when we got to the other end…"

"…I thought they were tryin' to shoot up them lawmen…"

"…I don't think they were of a particular mind to be carin' who they were shootin' at, as long as it wasn't them…"

"Point. I'll rephrase. We're not going to get shot at this time are we, Sir? On purpose, I mean. Accidental, I can take; but I'm getting' a whole lot tired of people shootin' at me for no other reason than the fact I happen to be working with you."

Mal managed to look slightly shamefaced. "Not everybody shoots at us."

"He's got a point Zoë," Jayne affirmed, "there was the time," he opened a hand a moved to count occasions off on his fingers "when Mal's wife tried to steer us into a wreckers yard…"

"…Saffron wasn't my wife," Mal groused, however, Jayne continued serenely on as if the captain hadn't spoken.

"…And I don't think Niska had any intention of shooting Mal, or Wash for that matter; in fact, I think shooting was the last thing on his mind, I think he was preparing to start with flaying. You know, Mal, in hindsight, it might have been a bad thing you did pushing Niska's representative into one of the engines."

"He had it coming."

"Maybe so, but you didn't have to listen to Kaylee whining about pickin' bone chips out of the intakes."

Mal shrugged, he couldn't argue with that particular fact. Then again, Kaylee was liable to spend a week bitching and complaining if someone simply looked at Serenity's engines with anything less that divinely inspired awe, so having to pick the fragmentary remains of the wholly unsavoury, Niska's henchman out of the intakes was liable to give her enough ammunition to complain to all in sundry about how unloved her baby was for at least a month.

"Okay, maybe you have a point," Mal conceded, "But not every job we've taken has resulted in someone attempting to shoot us."

"Well I guess that's true," admitted Jayne. "If we discount those jobs where someone was trying to shoot at us that leaves those jobs where someone was trying to rob us, rape us…"

"I don't remember anyone trying to rape me Jayne," noted Zoë, "I think I'd remember something like that."

"Sorry, I meant rape and then eat, or would that be eat then rape? You can never be too sure with those Reavers."

"I wouldn't get too cocky there, Jayne, I don't remember too many of our clients trying to sell members of our crew to the Alliance."

The big man shrugged, "I'm a mercenary, not Mother Theresa. Anyway, I needed the money. Now, I don't need the money and River's grown on me somewhat?"

'Mother who?' the captain silently mouthed at his second-in-command but she simply shrugged in ignorance, something that was become a fairly common occurrence when Jayne got to talking; in fact between Jayne and River, Serenity pretty much had the incomprehensibility stakes for that part of the 'verse sewn up.

"I hope you're not admittin' to developing feelings for that girl, Jayne"; although watching Simon become the first doctor to launch himself into orbit when he found out would be fairly amusing.

Jayne rolled his eyes, "Don't be an idiot Mal; I like River because she's like Vera, a dangerous weapon if not handled properly, and even more dangerous when she is. Combine that with the fact that she's smarter than the rest of us put together makes her an interesting person to talk to, albeit I need my secret decoder ring to figure out what she's on about sometimes."

"Jayne," Zoë noted, "sometimes you're just plain strange; mind you, the rest of the time you're extremely strange so that don't amount to one of the captain's hills of beans. Now, Sir, are we planning on attendin' this meeting or are we going to stand around here making targets of ourselves?"

"Targets? I thought you were just counting sight lines."

"Generally yes, Sir. But when there's a person at the end of a particular sightline that changes your designation from potential target to definite target, at present, I'm countin' three weapons trained on you, Jayne? She looked to the mercenary for confirmation.

Without changing expression, Jayne asked, "You get the one on the water tower behind the turbine?"

Zoë winced, "Make that four weapons trained on you."

Reynolds shrugged, "They makin' any sort of threatening move?"

"Depends if'n you consider havin' a weapon pointed at you threatenin' an' all." Jayne noted.

"Jayne, if you're going to say you think I'm an idiot, just say it, you don't have to descend into yokel-speak to make your point."

The large man smirked, "Now Mal, I wasn't calling you stupid; let's just say you're a mite braver than I thought, though. Admittedly, my definition of a hero is someone who was too stupid to run away, so bravery isn't exactly a compliment in my lexicon."

"…And what, pray, great warrior, is your preferred option to bravery."

"Personally, I'm fond of strategy and tactics, but if I have to shoot somebody in the back," he shrugged, "then so be it." Suddenly, he grinned, "I'm also quite fond of running away when the occasion demands it."

Eyeing his colleague with a mixture of speculation and annoyance, the captain turned to Zoë, "You any idea where we're supposed to be?"

"You're kidding. Right? This is your mission, Sir. All we know is what you told us on Serenity."

The captain waved his hand irritably in his second-in-command's direction. "I know that; but it's not like Sir Warrick gave me a street map and Bellerophon isn't exactly my home town. Pointing someone in the direction of a planet and saying meet someone there doesn't constitute, nor grant intimate knowledge of the place."

"Then how're we supposed to find where we're supposed to be?" Zoë gestured towards the square, which, other than its uniform whiteness, was distinguished by its complete lack of signage indicating either direction or proprietorship."

"I guess that's the bit where we utilise our vast professional experience…"

Jayne looked dubious.

"…Or" continued the captain, catching the mercenary's look, "we could ask someone."

"Excellent idea, Sir, who did you plan to ask?" Zoë remarked.

"There has to be someone around here."

"There is," noted Jayne, "they just happen to be pointing guns at us; I doubt very much that they'd be particularly obligin'."

Mal shrugged, "Well then, I guess we just pick a place at random and get some directions; I imagine someone around here knows this Li-Han person." This, of course, completely disregarded the possibility that Sir Warrick had also instructed his associate to meet with Serenity on Bellerophon thereby assuring that not one single soul would have even the slightest knowledge of the other party concerned.

Obviously, this wasn't something the captain had taken time to consider, or if her had, it didn't show as, with apparent – and indubitably - random determination, he strode off across the square towards the only building in sight that had a double door.

Jayne sighed, and cocked his head quizzically at the woman; "It took him how long to decide to move in a random direction? With weapons trained on us no less. Whatever happened to your famed military discipline?"

Zoë chose not to dignify the comments with a response, instead turning on her heel and following the captain. It was times like these that the mercenary began to doubt his own sanity in signing on with Serenity for, on occasion, it appeared that Malcolm Reynolds not only failed to consider the potential for the results of his actions to go horribly pear-shaped but his innate belief in his own indestructibility – if not immortality – led him to take risks that no sane person would contemplate. What compounded this insanity, at least in Jayne's opinion, was that people willingly – and indeed blindly – followed these actions; himself included, he admitted with some small measure of disgust.

He waited for a long ten minutes and when, after that time had passed and there was no sign of the captain and Zoë being forcibly ejected from the building – or emerging with guns blazing – he decided to relax; of course Zoë chose that particular moment to re-emerge from the building and call Jayne over.


	8. A Comedy of Manners

_That this chapter got written at all can be attributed to **V. Arsonist**, who politely prodded me when reviewing another of my stories – sometimes all I need is a kick in the backside._

_I wouldn't BTW, say that my muse has returned, but I am now feeling guilty when I don't write and the impetus to write and the appearance of ideas is, once more, semi-consuming: now I just have to fit it around my life…well that and Pharaoh: I should stop building pyramids…_

_I am relatively happy with this chapter: there's a few nice ideas here and it finally allows me to set up for the main idea of the story: Note: things will remain evil and cynical…don't worry._

_As always thanks to all who read. Please review if you feel the urge _

* * *

_"It's not the despair... I can stand the despair. It's the hope."_

**Happiness, n.:  
**_An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another_.  
**_- Ambrose Bierce,_****"The Devil's Dictionary"**

_If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing  
of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable  
grandeur of this life.  
_**-- Albert Camus**

* * *

To suggest that Jayne was surprised would have opened one up to accusations of gross understatement for Jayne had, during the course of the day's events, moved beyond surprised into a realm of dumbfounded astonishment and thence into a utopian wonderland of complete bewilderment. It was not, one hastens to add, a wholly unwelcome experience for the mercenary (well, actually, it was in this instance, but let's at least start things off on a positive note), but it was an experience so far out of his ken that he had to sit and ruminate on the passage of events.

When Zoë had initially summoned him into the meeting with Sir Warrick's business associate, Jayne had assumed that the meeting had taken on an aspect that was somewhat less than cochre to her and the captain (although, in all probability, it was probably Zoë who was experiencing any feelings of unease, seeing as how the captain's threat assessment mechanism appeared to be permanently set at oblivious), and thus his attendance was required in order to present a suitably muscular reinforcement to whatever the captain (and Zoë) had determined to be the threat to proceedings.

This was not to suggest that all-and-sundry expected things to go sour: well they did, practical experience had seen to that, however such expectations were usually kept muted - muted, that is, within the captain's hearing - as Mal, for some reason, tended to retain a degree of optimism wholly at odds with the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune apparently ordered by the bushel-load when dealing with all things Serenity.

However, at least in this instance, it had to be acknowledged that no trouble was expected. Sir Warrick, had, through dealings past, proven to be a reliable and honest customer: insofar as you could call what the cows had deposited all over the hold floor, 'reliable' and 'honest'. Jayne grinned wryly in reminiscence; River had stated that the cows weren't cows on the ship because they'd forgotten how to be cows; obviously no one had mentioned this particular fact to the internal bovine digestive mechanisms, which had appeared to be, at least to Jayne's reckoning, one-hundred percent fully functioning cow.

Anyhow, he was getting off track.

On entering the building – where the meeting was taking place – and preparing to present his most threatening mien, Jayne had come across a situation wholly alien to him in his role as Serenity's thug-du-jour; a scene of professional conviviality and good will.

In the first instance, the client, Li-Han, had several reams of documentation inclusive of, but not limited to: bills of lading, customs declarations, tax invoices and various other pieces of bureaucratic ephemera that Jayne didn't have names for. In fact, Jayne had never seen so much legality gathered together in one place. Actually, more than anything, he was surprised that the captain hadn't gone into anaphylactic shock at the prospect of being on the complete up-and-up for once in his life. Admittedly, Jayne conceded, Mal wasn't a total scoundrel, taking, as he did, an almost biblical approach to business proceedings insofar as 'do unto others' and 'an eye for an eye' could be considered basic behavioural traits. To be fair, the man also adhered to a particularly rigid sense of honour which, while making absolutely no sense, and also bearing the appearance of being completely arbitrary (and wholly situationally relative), did attest to the fact that Malcom Reynolds did, in fact, believe in something other than being out solely for his own ends; and sticking it to the Alliance, however, as Serenity tended to avoid dealings with that particular entity these days, the captain wasn't often called upon to make a choice between common sense and outright vengeance…

…Unless, of course, it was Unification Day – or, as it was unofficially known on Serenity: Find an Alliance supporter (or group thereof) and make disparaging comments about said Alliance until they started a fight/riot Day.

Anyhow, not only was there paperwork, but there was also amicability, the real stuff too, not that fancy, false bonhomie where both parties were in the same room solely on sufferance and the smiling was a polite way of saying, "please inspect my truly impressive fangs with which I will well and truly fuck you up if you try anything." All-in-all such meetings were usually less civilised than the bacteria that infested Badger's armpits (This was only speculation as Jayne had no actual wish to go anywhere near the scrofulous little toe-rag's body in any shape or form) but this, this was something even Inara would feel at home in: it was like a practical demonstration from the Whore School's sitting room.

"Mister Cobb? Do come in. Sit down. Have a drink..."

At that point Jayne had started to seriously freak out; professional courtesy he could handle, polite conviviality on the job was something else entirely.

"…Jayne, this is Mister Fabian Li-Han…"

Now he was being introduced to the clients? Jayne's mind reached into the depths of its memory – taking care to step around the silently gibbering part of his unconscious that was ringing a bell and declaring that the 'End was nigh' - and hauled out something about Pod People; this wasn't Mal, this was a pod person.

Jayne quickly discarded that idea. Even a pod person wouldn't voluntarily take over Malcolm Reynolds; the captain was too damn stubborn, although the image of Mal, brown coat an' all, standing around arguing with the alien presence ''bout how it wasn't right that it should try and take over his mind', caused him to smile briefly.

Finally, in surrendering to inevitable, the mercenary had cast a quick glance at Zoë, whose paranoid-o-meter rivalled his own and she too, at least by paranoid, over-protective Zoë standards, appeared completely at ease.

"You two ain't been poisoned or somethin'?"

Before the captain, or Zoë, could answer a hearty laugh broke over he group much as a breaker crests a breastwork, "Mister Cobb I assure you that neither the captain, nor his associate have taken any harm…"

"…Although I am touched that you care, Jayne…"

"I don't care none, Mal, I was just wonderin' what I'd have to tell the others so they didn't get a mite upset and break out with the shootin' when I turned up without you and Zoë." Jayne returned his attention to the first speaker, the one who had given assurance that everything concerning his companions was above board.

"I guess I can assume that you're the one running this show?"

"A most astute, if wholly logical, deduction Mister Cobb. I," and the man spread his hands in effulgent welcome, as if to impress the mercenary with the intrinsic brightness of his goodwill "am Fabian Li-Han, although, I would assume you knew that if you'd paid any attention to the captain when you entered."

Li-Han was, despite his oriental-sounding name, about as far from resembling the prototypical oriental gentleman as could be imagined. Standing almost as tall as Jayne himself, Li-Han's appearance denoted one long-used to hard physical labour, and while his dress was of the costliest fabrics and of the finest cut, there was nothing about the man that bespoke a dandy.

"So what's with the dog and pony show?" Jayne asked, gesturing at the costly divans and exquisite bone china tea service from which Mal was doing a spectacularly poor job of looking like a civilised gentleman as he sipped, what Jayne assumed to be, tea. It could have been straight moonshine for all the big man knew, but then, he'd seen Mal drink moonshine and there was generally a good deal more spluttering involved than was the case here.

"No dog and pony show, Mister Cobb, I assure you; I simply believe that whilst there should be a degree of formality involved in the process of business, that formality need not necessarily preclude civility and goodwill. In this particular instance, I am doing my good friend, Sir Warrick, a favour, nothing more. So, you see, there is little reason for me to act in a fashion that would have an unnecessarily deleterious effect on your relationship with Sir Warrick or, for that matter, act in a manner that would adversely affect my relationship with him."

"So what you're sayin' is that you ain't rightly got no reason to screw us over…"

It was difficult to determine who winced first, Li-Han or Mal. Certainly, Mal was the first to respond with his drawn out enunciation of the mercenary's name an obvious prelude into a more detailed dressing down, however, his expected recitation was cut off at the knees by Li-Han, who appeared to have a facility for long-winded exposition that exceeded both Simon and Inara in full-flight.

"Well, I suppose one could describe things in such a light if one so wished, however, it's such a base and primitive way of looking at things that I'd really rather treat it with the degree of contempt such analysis deserves. Anyhow, Mister Cobb," and at this Li-Han cast a jovial eye over the mercenary, "methinks your descent into crudity attempts to mask something more than you believe your appearance communicates. In fact, your captain and I have had a most interesting conversation as to your more intellectual abilities and pursuits: 'I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another'."

If Jayne was surprised at having Shakespeare quoted at him, he didn't show it, nor did he, for such rhetoric would be fruitless, deny the charge; instead, perhaps responding to the inherent intellectual challenge, he responded in kind.

"… 'And thus I clothe my naked villainy. With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;  
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.'" Jayne grinned somewhat mischievously, "or, at least that's what I tell the paying public, you tell people, through word and deed, something for long enough they start believing it."

"…And if you repeat something often enough you start believing it yourself…"

"Better the devil you know and all that. Anyway, it's a bit like an old hat: I like it, it's comfortable and I feel good in it, what more could I possible want?"

Li-Han shrugged, "It's not my place to comment on such things, Mister Cobb, suffice it to say what a person wants is something that many people never discover or, even if they know it, lack the courage to pursue it with all their heart; tell me, Mister Cobb, which are you?"

"I thought it wasn't your place to comment on such things."

"Colour me inconsistent."

Casting a speculative eye over Li-Han, and then once more about the room which, as he had noted when he first entered, was the epitome of refined – if somewhat opulent – elegance, caused Jayne to doubt the casually cast-off comment. To the large man, what such elegance, or taste if you will, spoke to was not inconsistency, but a rather care and concern for detail, a preference for exquisite quality and above all, balance – at least it was if the pure integration of the room's components was anything to go by. Of course, Jayne, being a mercenary and neither an antique dealer nor interior decorator, could only haphazardly come to this assumption; his range of knowledge didn't extend into the realms of porcelain provenance unless, of course, said teapot company also happened to manufacture high-grade weapons. Admittedly, this was entirely possible, a memory, or something resembling such, was floating around in the back of his mind about clay pots being used to make oil-based, fire bombs back in the distant past that was old Earth..

"I don't think so," the mercenary disagreed, "you strike me as anything but, in fact…"

"Jayne! Enough! I won't have you endangering a potentially beneficial relationship simply because…"

"Peace, Captain," again Li-Han interrupted Mal before he count mount his high horse and charge off into the realms of high dudgeon, "I take no offence. In fact I would be disappointed if Mister Cobb didn't respond to such an open invitation, the _codes duello _are patently in operation."

"Codes whatsit?" inquired the captain, now thoroughly confused. From a point where he thought intercession would be required in order to save face, thereby protecting a potentially lucrative future relationship, he now had the ostensible victim defending the perpetrator.

"It's technical talk for fighting fair within a set of predetermined rules, Mal; you'd know these things if you paid a little more attention…"

"How'd'you mean?"

"Does Atherton Wing, ring any bells?"

"Point taken, although I still won."

"You cheated…sort of…Anyway, the point is that if you and Wing had agreed to a set of defined rules beforehand, such as, for example, 'no whacking people in the head with anything other than a bladed, metal weapon', then your actions could have seen you killed for breaking the rules.

"I didn't see you and Li-…, sorry, Mister Li-Han, agreein' to anything."

"I believe Mister Cobb is interminably taking his time to get to the point that I was using a metaphor, that both of us had recognised that we were engaged in nothing more than a bit of…verbal fencing…if you'll allow me to extend the metaphor further, nothing more; therefore the likelihood of my taking offence was minimal in the extreme."

"The captain couldn't know that, Li-Han," noted Zoë, who, until this point, had had little more to do than stand and appear statuesque. "Jayne has a reputation for offending people simply by breathin' the same oxygen as them let alone getting to the point of exchanging words, Captain was merely looking out for your, and his," she acknowledged, "best interests."

"Be assured, Ms Washburne, I take no offence at the captain's actions," the man allowed himself a thin smile, "in fact, I have to admit it's a somewhat novel, and wholly welcome, feeling to have a complete stranger stand in my defence; normally, I have to pay them."

"Pay them?" queried the captain.

"Mercenaries, Captain."

"But we're not mercenaries."

"And I'm not paying you."

Mal shrugged in acknowledgement, "There is that; but if you were paying us…?" he left the question as an open-ended invitation to which Li-Han merely laughed.

"Ever the businessman, Captain Reynolds." He gestured towards a circular table with several chairs randomly placed around it, "Come, sit, I may indeed have a potential enterprise to which you and your crew can no doubt lend their varied talents. Mister Cobb, Ms Washburne, please join us."

Out of habit, Zoë moved to flank the captain; be it war or commerce, she considered her place to be at his side. Jayne, however, backed away, wanting no part of the business side of things. While, as a mercenary – in times past – he had to retain a degree of familiarisation with basic mercenary economics, that is: the going rate for a kill, additional body transportation cost, value added tax, deductibles and the like, it was never something he had particularly enjoyed as it had a tendency to interfere with his killin', wenchin' and reading; although mostly his reading, as a good book took time and concentration, unlike killin' and wenchin', which could be undertaken with a greater reliance on reflex, training and biological instinct.

"No thanks, Li-Han, I'll go out and watch the mule. Anyhow, I'm guessin' the captain don't want me round no negotiations in any shape or form," and, before Mal could raise a spurious objection to Jayne's declaration, the man took his leave.

* * *

About an hour later, Jayne was still sitting – actually reclining: although he would have sworn on a crate of bibles that he was completely attentive – on the mule, waiting for the captain and Zoë to reappear. Momentarily, he considered that something may have happened to them, that the trader's apparent joviality in fact hid a darker, more nefarious purpose and that even as he lay guard (well there was no way he could justify his current position as standing guard) his comrades were being taken to a dank, pitiless dungeon.

The imagery caused him to smirk, and he noted to himself that, if he got the opportunity while planet-side, he needed to acquire some more books as resorting to Kaylee's melodramatic potboilers – only to assuage his boredom he repeatedly assured himself - was rotting his brain. However, he had to admit, he did derive a certain amount of amusement from picturing various members of the crew performing the clichéd functions of a staple romantic cast. With a little imagination, he envisioned the diminutive engineer in the role of a femme-fatale or, more probably, as a vapid southern belle, yet it was the image of Simon, swinging, heroically bare-chested, into a room that reduced him to a cackling semblance of himself, well that and calls from the imaginary Greek-chorus that kept his subconscious company, for someone to feed the poor man; for the good Lord had been spare with material when building the doctor. Admittedly, he reminded himself, such a determination on his part was wholly subjective, and totally arbitrary...and probably unfair. Irrespective of the subjective nature of his opinions, he remembered nearly decapitating himself one day, while training in the hold, when he overheard Kaylee talking to Inara about the doctor's overwhelming ruggedness: Jayne had started laughing so hard he fell off the bench he was on and just missed having his head cleaved from his shoulders as the weight came crashing down beside him.

Relaxing, he was about to descend back into a world where Inara was a whore with a heat-of-gold and the cavalry really did come over the hill to save the day…

"Hey mister?"

The voice was young, too young to be Zoë, unless Li-Han had been hiding a time machine under his couch, and the voice lacked the naïve effervescence of Kaylee or the guarded wariness of River's more lucid moments. It certainly wasn't going to be River in one of her less lucid moments as sanity now tended to far outweigh her more manic (or should that be, maniac) proclivities: secondly, when River did descend into such a state, Simon had taken to welding her into her room; in some instances, literally.

The likelihood of Inara popping by for a visit didn't ever bear consideration.

"Hey mister?"

'…thump…'

"Ow!"

'…thump…'

It was just as well the safeties on his various armaments were all securely fastened as Jayne took several, careful minutes to disentangle himself from a variety of straps, hooks and barrels. After ensuring that everything was stowed where it ought to be – and that he didn't shoot himself in the process – Jayne rolled onto his side all the while mentally berating himself for his laxity and lack of professionalism in being caught off-guard. Propping himself onto an elbow, he peered over the side of the mule and saw, precisely, nothing. Lifting his body slightly higher, he came face to face with a pair of eyes that just barely topped the bottom edge of the vehicle; by now, thoroughly vexed, Jayne's response came out in what amounted to little more than a growl.

"What?"

"What'cha doing?"

"At the moment? Preparing to shoot you."

"That's not very nice, Mister. My mother says that I should stay away from people who aren't very nice."

"Then go away; I'm not very nice."

"Why?"

"Why what?" Jayne rolled his eyes, this was like being back on Serenity, where everything he said and did had to be justified to the nine-millionth degree. Or it had until he'd given up on his pretence of being a cloth-eared idiot and started to beat those who tormented him about the ears with their own vacuity.

"Why are you not nice?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Gorramitt, kid, your name's not Reynolds, is it?"

The child gazed, somewhat myopically, up at the large mercenary, "Who?"

"Rey…look, never mind, just go away."

"Why?"

"…Argghhhhh…."

Jayne was just about to get down, out of the mule, and dropkick the painful little noise over the nearest building, when the sound of approaching voices momentarily arrested his move to definitive action.

"…And precisely what, Jayne, were you planning on doing with that child?"

"Orbit," he rumbled, casting a hand to shade his eyes so he could clearly identify who was approaching: he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. It was, somewhat inevitably – and as was usually the case when he was about to engage in a wholly precipitous course of action – the captain, whom had spoken, Zoë (in her usual position of shotgun) and, somewhat surprisingly, Fabian Li-Han.

"I hesitate to ask, Mister Cobb, but when you say 'orbit' one sincerely hopes that said noun isn't bounded by considerations such as 'sending the child into…'"

Jayne shrugged, "Nah, the little bastard hasn't got enough mass to generate a decent exit velocity," he squinted over Li-Han's shoulder, "I reckon I can put him on that roof yonder, with a bit of a run-up, though."

Li-Han appeared to look mildly affronted, "Mister Cobb, need I remind you that that is a child and not a dwarf?"

In turn, this comment was supported by Mal's continued glaring and Zoë's injunction that he 'either he left the child alone, or she shot him'.

"You getting clucky, Zoë?" the mercenary inquired, suspiciously. While it was true that the woman was prone to unwholesome fits of moral rigidity – only made worse by her continued association with Wash – she generally didn't stick her nose into things unless they directly threatened either the captain or her husband; everything else she was prepared to ignore.

For a moment, it appeared that she would follow through on her instincts and shoot him, and then, in a most un-Zoë-like fashion, she smirked at him somewhat impishly, "No, Jayne, no plans, although the practising is fun…"

Mal looked horrified.

While the captain was prepared to acknowledge – in a distant, tightly shielded, part of his mind - that his second was indeed a woman, his every word and conscious action was geared to the recognition of her as a soldier, his strong right hand, his partner; the idea of her making cooing noises at a squalling, wet mess she held cradled in her arms left him feeling wildly uncomfortable…and then there was the possibility that…

"…Don't worry Uncle Mal, it's a long way off yet…" and then she, and Jayne, descended into silent smirks and chuckles at his obvious discomfort.

"Hey mister…what's orbit?"

* * *

Several hours later, the three were back on Serenity and had gathered, with the rest of the crew, around the galley's lone table.

"So Mal, what's the deal with this Leghorn guy?"

"The gentleman's name is Li-Han," corrected the captain, somewhat acerbically, "and as to his 'deal', well it would appear that he is on the up-and-up."

"Did you get what we came for?"

"Yep, no problem, nothing but a simple delivery; apparently, we won't have anyone chasing us either."

"Where have I heard that before?" murmured Jayne, to rumblings of agreement from the rest of the crew.

The captain took a moment to cast an arch glance over his ostensibly tame mercenary, "That's alright Jayne, in this instance, you're not coming with us, so you'll be perfectly safe from the people who aren't chasing us."

The large man's bellow of outrage was effectively drowned out by the various queries, complaints and exclamations of disbelief from the rest of the crew; albeit the doctor remained silent, deciding to perform a victory dance in the privacy of his cabin at a later date. It was a shame really, he thought, that he didn't have a god he could make an appropriate sacrifice of thanksgiving to.

"Would everybody kindly shut up," shouted Mal and, for possibly the first time in recorded Serenity history (well other than the time when he'd threatened to shoot anyone who got in his way over the Miranda issue), everyone shut up…in a relative sense anyway…as Jayne was merely pausing to draw breath to more eloquently express his anger.

"Jayne…" warned Zoë, quietly, but with firm authority, "let the captain finish."

The man's posture was patently militant but he acceded to the request although his expression clearly indicated that the captain, and by extension, Zoë, were on notice.

"Look, Jayne," Mal, started, in what clearly meant to be a conciliatory tone, "you're not being abandoned it's simply that Li-Han has contracted us for another job, one that you're going to undertake; actually, Li-Han asked for you, specifically."

"Why?" Jayne was clearly suspicious.

"It's your own fault, you had to go quoting some obscure writer back at him; apparently he was impressed."

"So what's Shakespeare got to do with anything?"

"Well you see," and this time there was no hiding the captain's broad grin, "Li-Han needs a school teacher…"


	9. No Really It's a good plan

_Well, here we are again. First the good news, I will be concentrating on this fic a lot more than I have done previously – in part, this is due to a fit of pique on my part with regard to another fic I was working on…_

_I would like to extend sincere thanks to Alan M. Rogers for a brief correspondence which allowed me to more fully develop some of the ideas in this chapter. With regards to this chapter, while I feel it tailed off a bit at the end, there are several aspects with which I am truly happy…a very rare occurrence._

_As is my custom, I would like to apologise to the makers of Firefly, Lewis Carroll, the makers of Highlander, Shakespeare, Herman Melville (and his whale), the poor bastards responsible for Greek mythology and any other aspect of popular culture involving live, dead, real and/ or imagined characters that I have probably libelled in the process of this chapter. I don't own them and for that they're probably grateful._

_As always, this is beta-ed (probably badly) by yours truly – if you spot a mistake it was deliberate. If you spot a mistake and it really annoys you – then you probably have other things you should be doing…this is, after all, fanfiction…heh…Seriously, if you pick something up please advise me._

_If you really really want to, you can leave a review Hell, even if you don't want to, you can leave a review….please?_

* * *

_The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another  
mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same  
being who produces the impressions.  
_**-- Marquis D.A.F. de Sade**

**Mythology, n.:  
**_The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its  
origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished  
from the true accounts which it invents later.  
_**-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary**

* * *

Chaos reigned. Specifically, chaos was about six foot four, with a beard and too many guns; one of which he was using to punctuate his increasingly agitated declarations. Fortunately, chaos was a careful firearms owner, one who kept the safety on and the firing chamber empty when it wasn't in use; of course this didn't prevent all and sundry flinching whenever said grammatical device punctuated in their general direction.

"I ain't teachin' no gorram kids, Mal."

"He's right captain," noted Zoë, "If Jayne was prepared to dropkick a single child over a building, can you imagine what he'd do to a whole school of them?"

"The mind just boggles, really" noted Wash.

"Wash?"

"Yes, Mal?"

"Shut up." The captain paused a moment to collect his rapidly deteriorating temper, which, with all that occurred on the ship on a regular basis, was something at which he was becoming quite skilled. Staring about the common area, decorated, as it was, in the haphazard way that bespoke an environment determined more by constant use than addled taste, he took a moment to savour not only the potential fiduciary advantage which the group was about to encounter – and in large part it was that windfall that stilled his temper more than long experience in dealing with his lunatic cast of social oddities and ends – but also, to some significant degree, the incipient chaos in which he was about to dip several of his crew in much the same manner as a child's confection, however much the idea of Jayne as a giant, bearded sno-cone caused him to shudder.

"You don't really mean to turn Jayne loose on a group of children, do you Mal?" inquired Inara, her face assuming the worried, and increasingly familiar, lines that denoted her despair at being potentially involved in yet another of the captain's ambitious, but ultimately ill-conceived endeavours. "Think of the potential damage to their fragile psyches to be exposed to such an uncouth beast at such a tender age."

"Far better for them to be exposed to the delicate endeavours of a professional whore and assassin, then?" growled Jayne, who was still less that impressed with the captain's initial statement, and now, with the companion's additional editorial commentary, appeared capable of crescendo-ing into sudden violence such was his displeasure. "It's all well and good that you put on airs, woman, for all that you have no more entitlement to a claim of civilisation than the next person, other than, of course, your association with an organisation that runs cheek-by-jowl with our society's glorious overlords. But, think not to claim some measure of superiority, simply because you tend to matters of personal hygiene on a basis more regular than myself; remember, I'm not the one who spreads their legs at the request of another any more than my virtue is harnessed beneath the servility of carnal endeavour."

Shakespeare would have been proud.

Inara had, in no particular order, gone white with shock, pale with rage and then assumed a mien reminiscent of a ripe-tomato; if tomatoes could be considered to retain a homicidal aspect. "Who are you to lecture me on morality, you ill-bred throwback? You, who would sell your soul for thirty pieces of silver, are not in a position to lecture me on who is better than whom."

"Yet it is mete for you, in your assumed superiority, to do so? Cry me a river little whore, your crocodile tears and gnashing of respectability's teeth cut you no slack here."

"Off with his head!"

Both Jayne and Inara were halted in their melodramatic tracks by the pronouncement from the corner, where River, seemingly against type (of late) was meekly curled about a large cushion. She shrugged, mildly, not at all apologetic, and, in fact, appeared to be almost consciously reining in her amusement, "Someone mentioned Rivers," she noted, "I thought that was my cue. One of my entrances and exits; one of my parts, like that time when I was playing croquet with a flamingo, except it wasn't very happy about it and it turned into a sky-snake and flew up to the moon."

Jayne shrugged, his anger effectively diffused by the girl's Dadaist segue, "Would anyone care to translate?"

Everyone looked at Simon and, in turn, the doctor looked everywhere else; well, everyone looked at Simon except for the captain who appeared to be desperately attempting to flag down the conversation and redirect it back to somewhere in the vicinity of where it was supposed to be going; he'd given up on trying to restrain his temper as he knew he'd just lose it again and he really couldn't be bothered chasing it down a surrealist's rabbit hole.

"While I hate to break up this attempt at mass intellectual suicide, if you would all kindly shut your traps of half a second you'll be given an opportunity to tell me why this job can't possibly work with something resembling an informed opinion, as much," and he pointedly glared at Jayne and Inara, "as an informed opinion is possible when you obviously have little room in your heads for anything other than the chips you carry on your shoulders."

There was a moment of silence as the crew tried to twist their minds around the captains Gordian imagery; only River seemed at peace with the notion, apparently having no trouble with a metaphor that was not only mixed, but shaken and stirred. As she quietly mumbled to herself, something about the captain going all cubist on her, Mal launched into his grand plan.

"Now, generally speaking, and in any normal situation, your objections, with regards to letting Jayne anywhere a group of children, are perfectly reasonable," he held up his hand to forestall the mercenary's incoming objection, "but, that being said, as we have come to discover, of late, that Jayne is not the ignorant ape we thought him to be and that he appears to retain a degree of intelligence indicative of an ability to rapidly assimilate, retain and interpret diverse sources of information and thereafter implement a series of actions based on that information…"

Silence reigned, the stunned silence of a group not believing what they were hearing; albeit it was the presentation the crew – _en masse – _was having trouble with, not the intimation that the captain was prepared to admit that Jayne wasn't in fact, an idiot; admittedly, Jayne's propensity, of late, to beat all and sundry about the head with his intellect, had prepared them somewhat for Mal's admission, even if the resultant epiphany (such as it were) engendered a response that ran the gamut from disbelief to suicidal despondency – for surely the world was about to end.

"Who's your speechwriter, captain?" inquired Book; "you sound like an Alliance politician on the campaign trail."

Not even bothering to appear indignant, which rather gave the game away, Mal did try, and failed, to appear disingenuous, instead ending up as a brown-coated simulacra of a vaudevillian, shifty-eyed rogue, finally, he shrugged and grinned, "Okay, Li-Han told me to say that, I think he had some idea that it sounded impressive."

Jayne was puzzled. He couldn't understand why someone, like Li-Han, who was clearly intelligent, and whom had dealt with the captain thereby knowing the cut and manner of the man, would think that such an obvious divergence from his normal patterns of speech would not appear obvious to those with whom Mal worked on a regular basis; he voiced this notion to the murmured agreement of various bodies.

Mal smirked, the half-lighting of the room casting his face in a demonic chiaroscuro of shadowed patination, "Well, it got you all to actually pay attention to the delivery, which has to be some sort of first, it's also worthy of note that none of you questioned the basic premise that Jayne isn't an idiot and that he has displayed an ability to adapt."

Jayne snorted, "I might not be an idiot, but the others were probably quiet because they got lost someone around the second sentence," he paused to assess his statement; "well maybe Wash – but he can get his dinosaurs to translate later. As for the others; the doc switched off as soon as you mentioned the words 'Jayne' and 'intelligence' in the same sentence, Zoë already knew what you were going to say, Inara probably ignored you on principle, Kaylee was probably too busy imagining Simon naked…"

"I was not…" the petite engineer indignantly proclaimed before blushing scarlet as the mercenary levelled his gaze on her… "…well…maybe just a little bit naked…"

"…The Shepherd was probably thinking about that special hell of his, which is what he usually does as soon as you start talking 'bout one of your plans, and, as for the lunatic, she probably got all the words, but I can't guarantee what order she got them in so essentially you had an audience of one," he cast a sideways glance at River, "maybe one and a half – and you lost me back at 'teachin'."

The captain allowed himself a sardonic smile. Admittedly, it was more grimace than smile, but after the mercenary's critique he was trying (perhaps desperately) to work on the positive side of the ledger; the major positive being that the safety was still firmly secured on the big man's punctuation device; that and the fact that no-one had called him insane in the past five minutes. What Malcolm Reynolds was not, was worried. Long experience with crew of Serenity – and even longer in the semi-legit-maybe-but-not-quite-mercenary business – had taught him, not only, the value of patience, but the fact that if you kept on at people long enough they usually gave in just to shut you up. In the case of his present companions he'd met mules that were more amenable to his suggestions and, as such, he was prepared to adjust his patience accordingly. It was, however, true that he had an ace up his sleeve, an ace he didn't have to utilise very often, but one that was startling in its effectiveness, after all, there wasn't a lot you could say to 'my ship, my rules'.

Actually, that last statement wasn't particularly accurate, for if there was one thing the crew of Serenity was more of than stubborn, it was argumentative. In times past, Malcolm Reynolds had had more than his fair share of Inara giving him chapter-and-verse on why he was wrong (and didn't know anything), the Shepherd's vivid descriptions of his special hell, which had, if you listened to Book closely enough, its own, Malcolm Reynolds Memorial wing. If he was foolish enough to go near the engine room then he got to hear about how poorly he treated Kaylee's babies and Zoë put more than enough meaning into asking: 'Are you sure about that, Sir?' to make him wonder if he really was in charge; admittedly, Zoë's attitude was probably a carryover from their Brown Coat days, where it was really the NCOs who were in charge of things and the officers were simply there to sign the pay-checks. Nevertheless, sometimes Mal dreamed about telling the next person who argued with him to get out and walk; which, in the middle of the black, was a pretty conclusive way of settling a dispute.

"Alright, if you've fulfilled your need to bitch, moan and generally disagree with me on reflexive principle, how about you all shut up, pay attention and listen to what's going to happen, or next time it won't just be Jayne I'll be leaving in the airlock while it cycles."

Sometimes, life was about living, not dreams. Just as, sometimes, life was about recognising when someone wasn't bluffing and they really did mean to leave you in the airlock. Sure, you might be difficult to replace, and it was even possible that there was nothing personal in it – or, that is, at least as impersonal as the effects of rapid depressurisation can be – but the fact of the matter was that you picked your battles; with that shared realisation, the speed with which everyone did their best impression of devoted attention was somewhat heartening.

"Okay," now that you're all listening" – he couldn't hide the slightly sarcastic, and wholly sardonic, note that coloured his tone – "let's begin. Now, as I was initially saying, Jayne is going to be teaching or, to be more explicit, Jayne is going to be acting in a capacity that places him within the school environment while he acts as additional security and intelligence for Li-Han. The point of the…"

"Captain, I hate to interrupt, but surely even you can see, that of us all, Jayne is the most ill-considered choice to be acting in a teaching capacity. Now Jayne," the Shepherd continued noting the mercenary's ire once again bubbling to the surface like magma in an uncapped fumarole, "I cast no aspersions on your intelligence, your abilities as an _agent provocateur_ or your ability to act with due diligence and discretion, but surely even you must agree that you're the least likely looking teacher to grace the notion with an image."

"Aw hell, Shepherd, I ain't disagreein' none with your estimation of my teacherliness, I was more annoyed that you'd consider the lunatic a more fitting choice, I mean, what's she going to teach the children? How to babble in assorted languages? The art of random conversational tangents? Applied illogic in the seventh dimension?"

"My sister is a genius, you ill-mannered waste of forty-six chromosomes…"

"…it's no marvel my opinions are taken for nonsense. But no matter, I understand myself and I know there wasn't much foolishness in what I said, although your worship's always such a cricket of my sayings, and of my doings too…"

"The children will need to be geniuses too, to have the faintest idea what she's going on about," noted Jayne, his amusement, at River's impeccable timing, wholly transparent. He was about to continue needling the doctor, strategically ignoring the captain's glare when the girl lithely erupted from her seat and hurtled from the room. All that could be determined as to the cause of her actions was an echoing '…late, I'm late…a very 'portant date…'.

The doctor had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed and the captain grasped the silence as his means of continuing; or he would have done if Inara hadn't interrupted him before he started. This is, of course, a fine semantic point, whether one can interrupt another before the other has had a chance to actually open their mouth. Certainly, the captain was so used to being continually pre-empted - by all and sundry - that he didn't even bother complaining; aware that he'd need the energy for the arguing that was surely to follow.

"So Jayne is going to pose as a teacher, even though he's playing security?"

"Yes, it's all part of a cunning plan." You could have heard the Companion's eyes rolling from across the room.

"I hesitate to ask," noted Wash, quietly, his ever-cautious and thoughtful – which were his current _terms-du-jour_ in place of his usual resigned fatalism – tones, a profound counterpoint to the more energetic discussion intrinsic to his colleague, "but just how cunning is this plan."

"It's a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel."

The pilot's wince was as audible as Inara's eyeballs, "That's not particularly reassuring."

Jayne's sardonic drawl provided the ironic commentary to the captain's non-response. "Just how long you been workin' for Captain Ahab here, little man? Surely, by now, the concept of reassuring and Malcolm Reynolds aren't the best suited, or even introduced, of bedfellows. In fact I'd go so far as to suggest that the captain's familiarity with the concept is right up there with drinking too much and waking up next to something you weren't really sure has a place on the human phylum."

"Jayne?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know; shut up."

"Smart man."

"Smart ape, you mean; just as well he wasn't the prize exhibit at the Scope's monkey trial" muttered the doctor.

"How would you like me to open another hole in your head to breathe through, you effete snob; if I didn't love Kaylee like a sister, I'd cut off your head then take your woman."

"Why Jayne," squealed Kaylee, her girlish enthusiasm for an expression of affection overcoming her reflexive desire to defend her lover, "I didn't know you cared."

"Don't let it overwhelm you," snarled the mercenary.

Now it was the Shepherd's turn to roll his eyes. While it true that, in times past, Nehemiah Book hadn't followed the straight and narrow path, as was the Lord's dictate…and…that, if he were being strictly and totally honest with himself, it could be said that he had been a pawn of the devil insofar as his truck with killing and mayhem was as commonplace as breathing terraformed air was for most others, he was never one to indulge in machismo-inspired rants or surrendered to the red haze of testosterone-fuelled anger. (Normal practise was simply to shoot the offending object - object, insofar as awarding said refuse human status was external to any need to resort to advanced taxonomy – then move on). Thus the Shepherd found himself getting rapidly irritated with the various degrees of posturing taking place around him. "You know," he started, "I can find a place in that special hell for all of you if you don't shut up."

"What're you gonna do, padre? Untie your hair?"

"…And if he doesn't do that, I'm goin' to shoot you all; _dong ma_? I can always find another crew."

"…And pay them how? It's not like you pay us."

"I'll start by selling your damn dinosaurs. Now. Shut. Up." The captain took yet another moment to gather his calm – which was flying around the room like a vulture unexpectedly startled from its lunch, and has resorted to circling the room to see if its presence was still required or whether the wiser course of action was to go look for something – resembling lunch - that was less likely to be disturbed, like, for example, an Alliance officer's conscience: "now, where was I?"

Several people made to provide the captain with a hint, but he stopped them with an imperious, and wholly irritated, wave of the hand, knowing that if they got started, yet again, the gods alone knew when he'd be able to forcibly drag them back to the topic at hand. "Right, Jayne's going to be a teacher, but he's really playing security; except he's not playing security really. The whole story is that Li-Han is having problems with some subversive elements that are trying to destabilise the economy so they can take over, or something; he didn't really go into it. Anyway, he wants to create a distraction that's so obvious that while the people who're opposing him try to figure out if it's a bluff, or if Li-Han's lost his marbles or it's some other ploy, Li-Han will be able to put some of his other plans into place."

"So I'm just a distraction then?" queried Jayne.

"Yep. Except, you're supposed to actually teach; the whole point is that you're supposed to look and act hopelessly non-teacher-like while trying to appear that you're not acting. If you went in and were actually competent, the people watching Li-Han might think you're actually a teacher and that would defeat the whole purpose of things; follow?"

"No." Jayne sighed mightily; "but, I guess; in point of fact, I'd probably be more concerned if your plan made sense; when your plans make sense I feel like I losing my grip on reality."

For possibly the first time in recorded history everyone – even the doctor – appeared to be in complete agreement with the mercenary. Normally, history had demonstrated that such frightening degrees of unanimity was a Very Bad Thing: like drinking Kool-Aid from the madman's special vat and, as such the captain, ever a student of historical precedent (if not a particularly attentive student as he tended to believe that David and Goliath conflicts universally went to the guy who threw the first stone and not the bloke with the massive great army – with optional slavering – at their back); cautiously queried the large man's statement.

"What do you mean?" (See, told you.)

It was Wash who pre-empted Jayne's response.

"Well, let's see. How about the one where we take medically-created insane assassin and run from another assassin who happens to be in the employ of a massive, huge all-powerful galactic government who desperately want to recover the first assassin and will pretty much kill every..one…thing and anything left that gets in their way. We then engage in several minor skirmishes with the government assassin before we head off to a hidden planet which takes us through a bunch of cannibalistic psychotics - who make the first assassin seem sane by comparison – discover a massive great secret conspiracy. We turn around, fly back through the bunch of ravening cannibals, who decide to follow us, and end us facing a battle-group from the all-powerful galactic government. Fortunately for us, the cannibals were really enthusiastic about following us and instead of being eaten we end up in the middle of a honking great battle in the middle of nowhere…"

"Okay, Okay, I get the point…"

"You're just damn lucky I'm like a leaf on the wind or you and your ideas would have been an _hors d'oeuvre_."

"Alright, enough already!"

"…And who the hell is Captain Ahab?"

"…A man with a fish obsession, Wash;" noted the Shepherd.

"Actually," noted Jayne, sententiously, "the whale is a mammal, so, in fact, Ahab was a man with a mammal problem – a bit like Inara has an issue about always knowing better and like the doctor has a problem with that stick up his…"

"Jayne!" exclaimed an outraged Kaylee, "Simon does not have a stick up his…his…you know…"

The mercenary shrugged affably, "I guess if any of us knows for sure, Kaylee, it would be you…"

"Special Hell, Jayne, special Hell…"

Jayne merely grinned as Kaylee blushed a fiery red and the doctor spluttered ineffectually.

"Alright Mal, I guess I can see the tenuous thread you've got passing through your argument, which, if I squint, could be called logic. What I want to know, however, is what Li-Han's interest in the economy is; the damn planet doesn't even have a planetary governor, so when you say he's worried about economic stability for all we know he could be talking about uppity competition, and here he is dragging a bunch of kids into the middle of things."

The captain nodded, acknowledging Jayne's point. "I asked the same thing and Li-Han's response reassured me."

"How do you mean?"

"He's payin' us double; well that and the fact that his daughter attends the school we're after babysitting."

"Proving what, precisely? You're not so far gone as to believe that the world of high-roller parenting is completely clean and lilywhite…"

"Well true…but he is paying us double."

Jayne shrugged even as the rest of the crew continued to look less than enthused with this latest development; "Well, as the old song goes…You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative…"


	10. The Emperor's New Clothes

I would like to start out with: _Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa_

That being said, I'm finding it harder and harder to write and find inspiration – despite my best efforts. I have, in the intervening period since I last posted a chapter, been trying to write this…it was neither a rapid, nor especially productive, process. When progress did come it was of the 'inspirational' variety and it came in fits and starts.

I think, it is for that reason, why some of this feels a bit disjointed (of course some of it is bloody brilliant too: at least I still have my modesty).

I have, as of late, beta-ed this myself, so any mistakes picked up are the fault of the reader…unless it's really bad, in which case I'll blame the wife.

As always, I thank (those of you left) for reading my (semi)-humble offering. If you have the time, please leave a review, they are greatly appreciated.

* * *

_Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.  
_**-- C.G. Jung**

_I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard  
of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than  
to be false and to incur my own abhorrence_.  
**- Frederick Douglass**

_Never be afraid to tell the world who you are._  
** -- Anonymous**

* * *

Some things are not meant to be: the Bumble Bee was not meant to fly, man was not meant to build a tower to Heaven, the bad guy was not supposed to win the day (and get the girl) and, sure as chickens lay potatoes, Jayne Cobb was not meant to wear a suit. Ever. Even at his own funeral. Admittedly, the likelihood that someone would actually take the time to bury the mercenary was pretty unlikely, so the thought of him gettin' all gussied up simply to be stuck in a hole in the ground somewhere was pretty remote. 

However, boards of education, wherever they may be – and no matter how disconnected from civilisation (and reality) - have rules; and one of those rules: **Section 4:** **_Paragraph 37: Sub Paragraph 49: Line 16_** – stated thus:

Verily, all those who come amongst the children in the manner of educator must demonstrate their professionalism and dedication to being a role-model for those whom have been placed under their pastoral and educative care. To that end, all those who come forth as educators must be suitably attired. Suitable attire is, in the interests of utility, a negotiable position, whereas negotiable (for gentlemen educators) constitutes a suit, which may, in the immortal words of Henry Ford, be any colour, so long as it is black.

**Section 4:** **_Paragraph 97: Sub-paragraph 75: Line 1_** – stated:

We don't know who Henry Ford was, but as he was clearly a man of taste and breeding we are applying his dictates where appropriate.

Latterly, someone had scribbled a note in the margin: 'Board seeks clarification of precise function of horn in apparel, will investigate.'

The long and short of the rules, however, was simple, Jayne Cobb would be wearing a suit.

Of course, the mercenary didn't have a suit; in fact, the closest the man came to having a suit was having a best gun, the shiny – in the polished sense of the word – one that he took along on jobs when Mal wanted him to appear to be a higher class of killer. That the actual weapon was a useless piece of _hwo-dahn _meant nothing, it looked pretty and fulfilled its primary function; that of ostentatiously looking like a weapon. The fact that Jayne usually carried at least five other weapons on his person at a given time – including grenades, for reasons the mercenary wouldn't let Mal forget – generally meant that the pretty gun wasn't called upon do actually do any killing.

_[Now, through the wonders of time-lapse authorial review, we'll take you back to the action as it occurred_

"I ain't wearing a suit."

"Yes," explained the captain, patiently, "you are."

"I ain't no gorram core-poof. The only people as wear suits are them lily-livered, wannabes who ain't got no balls so as they get all gussified up and try to beat you to death with lawyers. I have my dignity"

"You?" sneered the doctor, who could hardly resist this opportunity to reinforce to the mercenary just how far he, in the grand scheme of things, was down the evolutionary chain. "You have as much dignity as a rutting boar in a wallow. You are the epitome of a classless, graceless oaf; a mutt who's sole genetic purpose is to provide a warning to others on the dangers of sex without contraception. Without question, you are nothing more than a collection of primal drives corralled together solely to remind all decent folk what they left behind when they dragged themselves out of the primordial ooze and into a civilized environment. You are a fecund, base-born example of everything that is wrong with the human condition and an exemplar of everything medical science has tried to breed-out, eradicate or simply forget. You don't have a suit, you can't wear a suit and you're not fit for a suit; clothes may indeed make the man, but in your case, all you'd be fit for is a chimpanzees' tea party."

The captain hurried to intervene; worried that Simon's declaration may have instantly eradicated what little tolerance Jayne retained for the doctor's gentrified ways. In normal times, Mal was under no illusion as to the mercenary's barely restrained desire to throttle the man (hell, the doctor got under his skin and he was a mite more controlled than Jayne) but that he restrained himself as the doctor was crew and the crew were inviolate – Jayne has been heard to mutter on occasion something about how you can neither choose, nor kill, your family – which, considering Jayne's profession, and some of the anecdotes he'd related with regards to his family, showed a degree of professional (and personal) self-control that was to be admired. In this instance, however, the Captain was fairly certain the 'Good Doctor Tam' had overstepped all recognised boundaries of civilised behaviour and that Jayne was going to render his constituent components into something that Jackson Pollack would have been proud of.

Further still, it didn't look like any of the crew, including Kaylee, were going to intercede on the Simon's behalf.

While, at the best if times, the crew were passing unlikely members of the Jayne Cobb fan club, they no longer regarded him as something likely to be found on the bottom of one's work boots. While it had taken a goodly amount of time, they had, firstly, come to respect his abilities – stopping the bad guy shooting them in the back tended to have such an effect - and secondly, they appreciated fact that he was loyal and honest – in his own, mercenary, killing kind-of way – towards them and theirs; Jayne usually passed it off as him 'it gave him something to do while waiting for a better offer to come along' …

…And all the Captain could think about was who the hell was Jackson Pollack…

Valiantly, he sought to return to the topic at hand, the impending demise of his doctor…well, that is, he tried. "Now Jayne, I'm sure the doctor didn't mean every word he said…"

"…_It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong…"_

"…You're not helping, River…"

"Off with his head?" Even the girl seemed confused by her brother's words. "Methinks my brother has hit rock-bottom and started digging…How's the view, Simon?"

"…I mean you're 'really' not helping…"

"S'alright, Mal, I'm well aware of the doctor's opinion of me."

The aggravation and – honestly – trepidation the man had felt at the prospect of being so thoroughly out of his comfort zone, both literally, with the incipient donning of, he thought ironically, a monkey suit - which undermined the chimpanzee's tea-party idea as everyone knew they were apes – and metaphorically, with him entering the hallowed halls of academia, had been replaced with a measuring glance and the intense, focused scrutiny that had marked Jayne's dealings with all and sundry of late. Regarding the doctor appraisingly – and with the professional disdain of one used to measuring and casting aside one's adversaries – the mercenary merely raised an inquiring eyebrow indicating he recognised the words, and even the species making use of the relevant vocal patterns but other than that he was either unable, or unwilling, to attribute value, sentience or rational thought to the 'person' in front of him.

"…It's life Jim, but not as…."

"River. Shut. Up".

The doctor, for his part, had the grace to look somewhat subdued; although it was unclear whether his sudden oratorical reticence was borne of fear, or was the result of a fit of upper-class dismay at his sudden display of such poor manners and ill-bred behaviour. After all, sneering at the lower classes was something one was supposed to do in the privacy of one's own sitting room over a snifter of fine cognac, not announce from the highest parapet like a muezzin calling the faithful to worship.

"The rest of y'all can relax too. Doctor can rant and rave all he wants about my breedin' an' all, but least evolution saw fit to give me a chin – can't ask for more'n that now, can we?" The mercenary then turned his glance to the doctor's sister. "Chesterton, girl? Don't matter how damn moon-crazy you are, you've got good taste even if I still don't know where you get it," Jayne cast a withering glance at her brother, "it sure as hell ain't genetic."

River smiled primly at the big mercenary, "It was one of our secret assassin weapons, something about lulling people into a false sense of security before we whipped out our knives and slashed their throats…" the last was announced with a degree of unwholesome glee completely at odds with the image of the young coquette she had presented a moment earlier.

As one – with the exception of Jayne and Zoë – the crew blanched.

"…So I take it that you don't want to hear about what we did with the blood once it had gushed from the wound, painting the walls in lurid washes of arterial red and venous purple…"

"No River, that's fine, thank you."

"But Shepherd."

"Don't make me bring out 'the hair', child."

"Yes, Shepherd," and where there had, a moment ago, been animation, there was now nothing but a crude simulacra of a girl, a change more horrifying than any simple description of gore and viscera and, which more than anything, was an even starker reminder of just what River had been designed to be.

"You didn't have to threaten her with 'the hair', Shepherd," noted Zoë, "you know how she feels about the hair."

Shepherd Book shrugged, "Perhaps you're correct, Zoë, but consider also that River needs to learn that some things are best left in the shadows of one's mind…"

"River has neither the control over her mind or, more correctly, the way her mind edits her memories to account for the needs and taste requirements of general consumption," noted Inara, in counterpoint to the other woman. "Of all of us, Shepherd, I would expect you to appreciate that, and" she added, somewhat acerbically. "While you may have no inclination to reveal your past indiscretions, it is not your place to decide what is appropriate. I'm fairly certain your precious holy book mentions something about 'Judge not…' etc, so-on- and-so-forth, isn't that what you tell Jayne, Mal and Zoë each time they want to shoot someone?"

Book acknowledged Inara's point with a nod and would probably have segued into a rendition of one of his homespun - and well-worn – homilies but for Jayne's snide remark that the reality of the situation was that the Shepherd's annoyance was more to do with the girl's editing of his beloved holy book rather than any perceived social infraction, and that threatening River with his hair was simply his holy-roller way of keeping the girl under control without resorting to the more secular mechanisms favoured by the less biblically inclined.

Anyway, he disagreed with the companion; the girl may well have been a right pain in the arse on occasion (as well as being as mad as a bag of hammers); but that didn't make her stupid…or out of control…or wrong…

…Usually…

…Alliance advertising notwithstanding…

…And even then, old prissy bitches had the off switch…

"Don't under-estimate the girl; 'member, she's the one flyin' this here bucket of bolts while Wash'n his missus are off not makin' babies. Serenity don't fly herself none either. Truth be, takes a fair amount of that thinkin' thing you're not gracin' her with to do that; or had you forgotten?"

"It's not the same thing, Jayne…" amended Book, his expression pained - more by the man's descent into the hillbilly patois he favoured when he had decided his audience were idiots, than he was by the actual content of the statement. "One series of actions, those you've just described, relates to a set of technical procedures; the others, well I suppose you could argue that the 'Alliance Guide to Assassination' does indeed constitute a technical manual of sorts but not one, I would think, that's appropriate for general conversation and dissemination; however, if you wish to discuss the intricacies of your trade with River then, by all means, do so, but please, in your own time."

Jayne continued on, apparently unaffected by the Shepherd's comments, more than likely because he was ignoring them. "As for her memory; seems to me she's more sortin' out what's rightly hers and what's rightly not amongst the flotsam and jetsam that's floatin' loose up there along with the ghosts and the demons. What we've got is a problem of context; that is, we're not sharing her context, which don't, to my mind, make her wrong." Jayne paused a moment to assure himself that he had everyone's attention, "It's a bit like Inara telling everyone what they used to do at whore school, we get the general gist 'cause the words are all prettified with them BBC vowels, but it don't mean we rightly know what the hell she's actually goin' on about seein' as how we're not all whores and all…"

"…Thank you for that, Jayne; it's bad enough that the captain keeps calling me a whore without you adding your own particular slant on things..."

"That's alright, Inara, I'm sure you retain enough of your whore-school superiority complex to see you through. Now," and Jayne metaphorically girded his loins, straightened the set of his shoulders and surrendered to the inevitable, "let's talk about this damn suit I'll be wearin'."

* * *

River really wasn't helping. 

While Jayne was prepared to defend her intelligence, her martial prowess and even her predilection for choosing wildly obscure quotes, a couturier she was not.

A blind, religious zealot with a hair-shirt fetish would have provided saner fashion advice.

For some reason, River was determined that Jayne's suit would be blue – despite the explicit regulation to the effect that it be black – and that he would wear a top hat with a tag proclaiming 10/6; she also mentioned something about acquiring the mercenary a rabbit so he wouldn't be late, but that went completely over even Jayne's head

Fortunately, much to River's chagrin, and Jayne's eternal relief, sanity (such as it was on Serenity) prevailed.

Strange twists of causality – those that comprise the generation of situational irony - were hard at work in the construction of Jayne's suit insofar as the design, implementation and manufacture, of the project came down to a collaborative effort between Simon and Inara. Between them, the pair retained an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of fashion, social convention and the nuances that connected the two; it also helped that Inara, amongst her varied skills, was a talented – although, not to the professional standard of a qualified tailor - seamstress, an ability she had acquired during her companion training; Jayne had, somewhat petulantly, noted that '_How To Make Your Own Whore-wear_' was probably a core component of the Companion curriculum. The irony began to extend icy tendrils into the perverse world of alternate realities when Simon was heard to exclaim that he was quite enjoying the exercise, although, as River was head to whisper to Kaylee, the doctor was probably deriving a degree of sadistic pleasure from imagining Jayne coping with the intricacies of double-Windsor knots and the evil that was the buttoned-down fly. Of course, Jayne got a measure of revenge, albeit inadvertently, when it came to the process of fitting the garment, for if the doctor had thought the mercenary to be a bad patient it was nothing on his performance as a mannequin.

"I'm not a gorram pincushion holder, get that dammed thing outta my butt."

"Then hold still you recalcitrant gorilla. The whole point of this exercise is to make sure the suit fits you correctly, if you continue to move around like a Bantha in heat then all I'm prepared to guarantee is that what you'll end up wearing will bear a slightly higher resemblance to several pieces of clothing than a series of poorly connected fabric bags…but only just."

To suggest, therefore, that Simon was becoming frustrated was a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. While the doctor may have been tempted to treat the mercenary as the physical manifestation of the Jayne-shaped voodoo doll he had nailed to the wall of his cabin (a concept that became increasingly opaque the closer you looked at it as, literally speaking, at this moment, Jayne was the very personification of such) he was also a person who took far too much pride in his work – be it medicine or tailoring - to allow himself to become distracted by petty rivalry…

…"OUCH!!!"…

…Usually…

…That being said, there was a lot of satisfaction to be gained from the occasional, and wholly inadvertent – he added innocently in an attempt to assuage any potentially negative karmic implications - application of various pins, needles and sharp-edged fasteners.

"Jayne, if you don't hold still I'm going to ask Kaylee for the loan of her riveter, the high-speed, gas-compression riveter, and if I do, we won't have to worry about fit, but you will have to worry about your setting off every goddamned metal detector in every goddamned corner of the galaxy; in which case we might as well space you and leave you for a mining consortium to collect later."

And so it continued.

It was probably just as well for all concerned that current, formal fashion was of a relatively clean line and simplistic cut inasmuch as, while Simon and Inara's skills were formidable, neither were professional garment manufacturers and thus, the lack of necessity to present something that would have to tread the runways of Chiffon, the core world at the hub of the Alliance fashion industry, engendered feelings of relief; a suit was one thing, _haute couture_ was something else again.

From Jayne's perspective, complicated and tricky wasn't a problem, he could handle complicated and tricky, as his role was simply to wear the aggravating get-up – albeit in front of a under-tall crowd of juvenile malcontents. The mercenary's main concern, however, had been directed more towards the potential for current fashion being of an _avant-garde_ persuasion, irrespective of the fact that the official 'teacher-wear' guide explicitly delineated a black suit as the ONLY appropriate attire (with the additional inference that anyone, especially a teacher, who came near the school attired in anything else, would be summarily gunned down).

The school governors had not been, were not currently and, apparently, never would be, advocates for anything approaching flexibility.

Of course a knowledge of the reality of a given situation and the opportunity to indulge a completely irrational fear have never been - and never will be - equal sparring partners and, as such Jayne's imagination ran wild. In the large man's mind was the fear that he was going to appear as an even bigger idiot that he was already feeling and that if he had had to don one of the lurid plastic kilts that were currently all the rage on the Caledonian influenced planets the ensuing tantrum wouldn't have been pretty.

Nevertheless, when all was said, done and stitched, Jayne had to admit that he looked good, and more, that he felt good, thus giving truth to, not only, the truism that the clothes make the man but that you can't beat a hand-tailored and fitted suit for comfort.

"Damn, I look fine."

"Even if you do say so yourself," Wash noted mildly from his position at the galley table.

Eventually, the entire crew had converged to admire Simon and Inara's handiwork and, more subtly – although it was about as patently subtle as a train wreck - to see how their tame mercenary cleaned up. While it was true that Jayne, of late, had done a fair job in bludgeoning the fact that his intellect was something stratospheric into their collective consciousness, his appearance had continued to resemble the result of a wholly indiscriminate mating between a combine harvester and the Salvation Army's used-clothing appeal. It wasn't that Jayne was – despite the doctor's firmly held belief – unwashed; Jayne's mother had spent far too many an evening summarily drowning the recalcitrant wretch in the wooden half-barrel that did double duty as the Cobb family laundry and bathtub for the mercenary not to understand the concept of cleanliness, it was just that his concept of cleanliness didn't extend to the clothes he wore…continually. In fact, so disreputable was the general state of the meenary's apparel that even the most indiscriminate of vagabonds would have turned their nose up at the choice of _prêt-a-porte _on offer…

…As would most fleas and, if Wash was to be believed, matronly dung beetles had been seen scurrying in the other direction their antennae waving in consternation.

It was the captain who broke the, somewhat stunned, silence. "Well, you've done a mighty fine job here, Doctor, Inara. If I didn't know him, I'd swear Jayne was respectable."

"Thank you, captain," acknowledged the doctor; "still, it seems a waste to use such fine material in such a fashion. I'm certain that, given the time, we could have found a burlap sack and configured something far more appropriate to the model; probably involving the use of a bell and a sign about lepers, but, alas, we did what we were asked."

The comment caused Inara to cast a somewhat jaundiced eye at her fellow designer. While it was true that she wasn't Jayne's greatest fan she was prepared to admit that, in this instance, one where his patience must have been tried in the extreme, the mercenary had been a model of restraint (by Jayne's standards, anyway); certainly, if positions were reversed, couldn't see the doctor putting himself in such an obvious state of disease.

Admittedly, the likelihood of the doctor being called on to assume any role other than that of medicine man (or, perhaps, over-pretty rent boy – as many of the male companions at the motherhouse couldn't compare with Simon's effete beauty) were extremely unlikely, as his performance, at what had come to be known as 'Jayne's Town', had convinced all and sundry that the doctor didn't have a single thespian-oriented bone in his body. Jayne, on the other hand, had had everybody convinced that he was little more than a semi-intelligent piece of beef for several years a testament to the fact that he 'could' act.

The fact that he hadn't shot, or even threatened to shoot, the doctor also demonstrated that Jayne retained the correct temperament for working in a demanding environment and, Inara quietly chuckled to herself, you didn't get much more demanding an environment than a school for younglings. On consideration, Inara hoped that the mercenary's evidenced restraint extended to the children, for while shooting the doctor may have been an unlawful, if wholly justified (in some circumstances) act, the same could not be said for shooting children; for some reason, children were regarded as innocents, which, to the Companion's mind, was obviously a belief fostered by those who neither had, nor interacted with, children.

It was, inevitably, River, who broke the semi-reverent silence that had descended upon the crew as they meditated on their ugly duckling made, if not good, then, at least, less ugly.

"He's just like a flamingo, a tall, black flamingo…and he's right-side up and not pink. How will you get the ball through the hoop if you're not pink, Mister Teacher? More importantly, Mister Teacher, can you teach, or are you going to be a black-flamingo statue made of stone."

"You know," Shepherd Book, noted, "she makes a good point, can Jayne actually teach? We know he's not stupid…"

"…Standing right here thank you, Shepherd…"

"…But teaching isn't about whether or not the teacher is actually intelligent…"

"I don't know about that, Shepherd", kibitzed Wash. "Seems to me that it's probably a good idea that the teacher knows something, otherwise they could end up like…" The pilot's eyes desperately scanned the room as he realised that his, once, obvious target was a target no more "…ummm, like Badger."

"Good save, Husband;" noted Zoë, to her profusely sweating mate.

The captain regarded his mercenary with a sense of proprietary concern as his mind wrestled with the implications for their mission of a their fake teacher not being able to – as it were – fake teaching. "Well, Jayne, will the teaching be a problem?"

The mercenary shrugged, "Well captain, it's like Theodore Roosevelt used to say, 'Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it'. Looks like I'm going to be busy." He cast a wry grin in River's direction, "any volunteers to play teachers and students?"


	11. Paging Eliza Doolittle

**There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein.  
-- Red Smith**

I bet you all thought this was dead. Well, so did I.

It's been about 4 months – I'm sorry: I got stuck – badly.

I have a question for folks: I normally try and write, at least, 4000 words for each of these chapters as I hate underdeveloped stories with short chapters, however, it's making things really hard to progress. So, for once, I am going to ask the reader…readers? Should I keep progressing at my own pace, or shorten the chapters down to 2000 words in order to move things along: serious answers only thanks.

I've been really grateful to see the number of people whom have added this story to their favorites of late: surprised, but flattered. Thank You.

Please – after all this time, read and review (or just abuse me for being slow)

* * *

_We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get  
back to normal, and that they already have._

_History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once  
they have exhausted all other alternatives.  
__**-- Abba Eban**_

_To err is human.  
To blame someone else for your mistakes is even more human._

* * *

For some reason, mayhap coincidence, but considering the innately persecuted world-view held by the crew was probably indicative of something far more nefarious, a batch of mail had caught up with the Serenity on Bellerophon. Admittedly, it takes a pretty special form of psychosis to think you're being stalked by your mail, but seeing as how the universe (or, at least a fair proportion of its denizens) had shown that it was indeed pretty much out to get Mal and his crew a little suspicion was likely warranted. While it was true that all-and-sundry, on board Serenity, were somewhat paranoid, they weren't quite so far gone as to assume that individual letters had flown throughout the galaxy on a lonely quest looking for their intended; for a start, paper-based objects tended not to react well with the standard planetary atmosphere but, more importantly – and slightly more connected to reality – was the knowledge that Mal had advised various contacts on Persephone where they were headed to (or at least the general direction thereof – phrased, in part as, 'where's there's no gorram Reavers and no gorram Alliance') and, as such, there was a slight statistical likelihood that their mail would have caught up with them eventually. That there wasn't an extant interstellar mail-service was cause enough to raise a few eyebrows – when mail actually reached you at somewhere other than one of the centralised , and recognised, trading posts – if a truly determined person wished to track you down, they could; Leonora Cobb was such a person. 

Conspiracy theories aside, everyone was overjoyed to receive a reminder that their shipmates were not the only indicator that they were part of a civilised species; well, everyone, that is, except the captain, who'd received a long missive from Badger, demanding a cut of any action Serenity acquired in their travels.

Jayne had received another care package from his mother, which, while fortunately, containing nothing of the knitted persuasion did retain several pieces of primitive art that was proclaimed (by a proud grandmother) to be the work of his niece. There was also a letter; somewhat lengthier than her last missive, one where she had appeared to have actually taken the time to read what she had written. Normally, Jayne's mother put all the care and attention into her letters that the average religious bigot contributed to a casual stoning, that is, she did it and moved on to weightier matters, that she hadn't intimated that she was trying to make up for something, probably, the man surmised, somewhat fatalistically, the lack of alarming knitted garments. Leaving the package in his cabin, he had moved to the galley in search of a nice cup of coffee – or Serenity's nearest equivalent thereof - to provide moral support for what was to come.

_Dear Boy_ – it proclaimed.

Jayne smiled, somewhat ruefully, his mother never changed. Not even an enforced separation of several thousand light-years could negate the effect of a single word that spoke of her long-suffering resignation at having such an undutiful child.

_I would thank you for your last letter, but as I'm not stupid, nor reduced to the point where senility has taken a hold of my senses, did you really think I would be so far gone as to not recognise a letter that says 'Hi, I'm fine, bye'? Remember, you brother is the idiot, not me._

Well, Jayne conceded, his mother did have a point, his brother was an idiot. That being said he was – as he always had been – fairly certain that if he'd wrote a letter that included a point-by-point summary of his latest exploits with women of ill-repute, a list of people he'd shot and a general recounting of his sundry bad habits his mother wouldn't have been any happier; although, there was definitely something to be said for being castigated for things other than being a non-dutiful son for , at least, they had a measure of standing in an, ostensibly, rational universe. Anyhow, his mother punctured that particular delusion with her next sentence.

_I'm not entirely sure what you think you're protecting me from – assuming, of course, that you retain the basic traits of you childhood and still can't tell me a simple truth when a convoluted lie will do. I'm well aware of your tendencies in certain areas and that your spending all that time learning how to fight and shoot wasn't so you be settin' yourself up as some sort of fancy-pants dance instructor. Remember, boy, the whole town has seen you dance (or your version of it) and it's still used to scare the young'uns at mid-winter festival._

Jayne wasn't surprised the young were traumatised in the retelling, he was traumatised by the memory and that was near on twenty years past. He really wished his mother didn't have to remind him of this particular event at random opportunities. _Mea Culpa_, he had got into his Grampa's home-brewed rye whiskey. _Mea Culpa_, he had ended up completely shit-faced and headed into town. _Mea Culpa_, he had started to dance in front of the town's church (it was a Sunday and most of the God-fearin' folk were off seein' to their consciences) to the sound of the hymns. _Mea Maxima Culpa_, for some reason he'd removed most – well, okay all – of his clothes during, what the pastor had described as a heathen and ungodly performance.

The pastor had not been impressed

In fact, the pastor had been so unimpressed that he had made a special visit to the Cobb homestead to express his displeasure. In turn, Jayne's mother hadn't been particularly impressed and expressed her displeasure with a wooden paddle – 'you're never to old to be taught your manners, boy' was the exact quote. As a result, Jayne's backside still remembered the tarring it had got that day. It should be noted, however, that Leonora Cobb was less distressed by Jayne's drunken display than she was at having to listen to the tired, old windbag of a preacher mount his high horse and ride all over her dignity.

The mercenary paused for a moment of fond reminiscence; the one person who had been impressed with the turn of events had been the extremely strait-laced choir mistress, whom had engaged the young Cobb for a repeat, private performance (several, actually). Jayne had learnt a lot and the choir mistress was, from all accounts, running the local brothel.

_Your sister's on the run at the moment, she finally got sick of that half-arsed idiot of a husband and went and shot him. Don't worry none, as he's still alive and she got away clean; however, you can be pretty certain he won't be sexin' no secretaries no more, if only because your sister filled his man parts with large-bore lead pellets – from what I hear on the wind, doctors weren't able to find enough to scrape back together with a spatula. Anyhow, yon sister's hiding up in the hills in the smugglers cave Grampa used to hide his whiskey in. Didn't tell the law that when they came visitin' and I don't rightly think they're lookin' that hard, 'specially seein' as how Casey commented it was good to be seein' a lawyer returned to his natural state. You remember Casey? Old man Tobin's boy? Up and joined the law, which was a real shock to his pa seein' as how the whole clan was expecting him to join the family banditry business – I guess there's a black sheep in every family…_

Subtle as ever, Jayne noted, wryly, of course subtlety wasn't generally recognised as a distinguishing trait of the family Cobb. On consideration, Jayne was fairly certain that if the family ever reached a social position which would have involved the retention of a coat of arms the family motto probably would have included something about sledgehammers – albeit done up in a fancy foreign language to make it sound less barbaric…(_il y a vérité dans la subtilité du marteau de fogeron_)… probably. Shrugging, Jayne returned to perusing the contents of his mother's missive but was interrupted by the sound of someone entering the galley.

It was Inara.

Obviously, the companion wasn't expecting anyone else to be up at such a late hour, which, in part, explained the fluffy robe and bunny slippers; but, as Jayne conceded to himself, who knew what Companions did in the silence of the midnight hours.

"There's fresh coffee made," he murmured from his shadow-obscured corner of the room; from the companion's reaction you would have thought a thunderstorm had emerged from under the sink; even the slippers looked frightened. Taking a moment to peel herself off the ceiling, Inara, turned to glare in the mercenary's direction.

"You did that on purpose," she snapped.

"Did what?" was the innocent reply, "offer you coffee? I'm sorry, next time I see you I promise not to offer you coffee."

"Bastard," the companion replied eloquently. Recovering somewhat, Inara took a moment to fix herself a cup (of the previously mentioned coffee) before moving to sit adjacent to the mercenary. Taking a long, decorous, and clearly measuring, sip - as Companions are too well trained to slurp or gulp – she glanced at Jayne with a inquiring expression.

"What are you doing here?"

Jayne indicated the somewhat substantial wedge of papers in front of him "Reading my mail…" …or I was, he thought.

"No, I can see that. What I meant was, why are you here, in the galley? Normally, you're in your bunk and the only time you come out is when Mal wants you to shoot someone, or," she continued in a considering tone, "you're being fed; of late the only way to get you out of that damn cabin is with a crowbar."

Jayne took a moment to consider the Companion's question, as he wasn't really sure if he wanted to discuss some of his deeper motivations for leaving his bunk (for example, the fact that the idiots on board kept looking for him there) so he diverted the tack of the conversation; sometimes it was best to simply hide behind a stereotype.

"I'm surprised you'd admit to knowing what a crowbar is, seein' as how that is associated with manual labour. However," and Jayne arched an eyebrow at the companion, "it could be said that you're engaged in a form of manual labour. Admittedly, I'm not well-enough versed in all aspects of Companion training and etiquette to be sure how a crowbar would fit into the scheme of things unless, that is, one of your clients has a fantasy about mechanics, in which case we could simply wheel Kaylee out…"

Inara, seeing the obvious barb for what it was chose, to play it with a well-constructed forward defensive shot, in actuality, this involved staring speculatively into the depths of her cup searching for inspiration; or she would have done if the inky murkiness of the coffee didn't swallow the light in the manner of a – particularly small and infinitely malicious – black hole. Instead she was left with the minimal encouragement provided by the ominous looking oil-slick that lurked on the surface clearly waiting for an innocent insect to fall prey to its allure.

Finally, inevitably even, the Companion chose to play the game as the rules, in existence since time immemorial, dictated.

"I wouldn't let the Captain, the Doctor, the Shepherd, or pretty much anyone else on board hear that line of thought…." The Companion's tone while attempting to imply dire consequences sounded curiously flat, as if she didn't believe the threat she was suggesting, certainly Jayne didn't appear too concerned at this pronouncement of doom; he'd been threatened far more effectively by his five-year-old niece when he'd used best doll for target practise.

"If that was supposed to be a threat I'd suggest that you'd do better using the crowbar." The large man shrugged, "Sure, Mal can shut me in the airlock – again - and if Doctor Repression can manage to free himself from his Hippocratic oath – and overly tight underwear – long enough to use that scalpel he keeps threatening me with, then sure, I might have a problem but, if necessary, I'll shoot them both."

He would too. Jayne, albeit a thorough-going professional, and not liable to acts of senseless violence, had a well-enough developed sense of self-preservation to take care of any, true threats to his continued well-being with a degree of finality that was…errr…final. Friendship and professional courtesy were all well-and-good in Jayne's book, but self-preservation was self-preservation, well that and his ironclad rule about starting nothing and finishing everything also contributed significantlty to his perspective on such things. Of course, Jayne's sentiments, albeit definitively more sophisticated in terms scope and nuance had been made clear to one and all during, what had become popularly known in the press as, the 'Miranda Incident'. It was then that Jayne had stated 'Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. To be fair, Jayne was comparing a series of actions that made sense – or could at least be explained to a very sympathetic jury - to those of the Reavers, which didn't. However, even taking dramatic license into account it was clear that Jayne would kill you if he had too. He might feel sorry about it later but you'd be dead and he'd be relaxing with a drink and he wasn't about to make an exception based on station, position or, ostensible, relationship.

"Book might be more of a problem, what with him being all ex-black-ops Secret Squirrel, but he's so busy repenting that he's not going to overreact simply because I noted that someone might not be quite the innocent lily that the rest of you are painting her as. Shepherd'll probably wheel out that holy book of his and make a speech about that special Hell where he's planning to send Mal, but that's about it; unlike the rest of you he's got better things to worry about than debating the best way to preserve Kaylee's alleged innocence."

"We're quite aware that she's not innocent or, for that matter, a child" the companion retorted, somewhat primly.

"Not on anything above an intellectual level, although I would have thought the vast amount of batteries she gets through would have given you a hint. Even the doctor, who appears to be ploughing that field on a regular basis, if the screams coming from her room are anything to go by, still treats her like she's made of fucking porcelain." The big man shook his head in wonder. If he had been in Kaylee's position he would have tossed the doctor out the airlock for his constantly patronising tone and gone back to using battery-powered appliances.

"How crass." Inara sniffed dismissively, "If I follow your line of reasoning then the fact that someone is, to use the vernacular, 'getting ploughed regularly', implies that they should be treated just like everyone else. Face it Jayne, Kaylee may very well be an adult but she retains an aura of innocence that the rest of us want to protect."

"No. Kaylee knows how to have fun and take joy in the simple things" the mercenary contradicted, "that's not the same thing. The rest of you are so damn po-faced, 'bout life, that you take her simple pleasure in living to be nothing more than bein' simple. If I was going to descend into mindless psychoanalysis, I would suggest that you all coddle Kaylee because she retains something that you've all lost. Look at you, all perched on a pedestal, mourning your lost innocence. You might wrap up your 'companionisms' in pretty words and finer clothes; you might preach of the value of what you do, but face it Inara, your profession has made you as hard as nails. The others are no better. Shepherd's running away from his past and the Captain's desperately trying to recreate his. So what do you do? You all grab the nearest thing to an idealised state of, for want of a better word, innocence and try to wrap it up and put it away on a shelf where it won't get broken." Jayne sighed, "River gets the same treatment. That so many of you continue to equate her psychological issues with a complete inability to do anything else is astounding."

"But that changed after Miranda."

"Did it? Really? Can you honestly say that you don't tiptoe around her in case she does something 'crazy'?"

"…And you don't?"

The Companion's question was a loaded gun, essentially accusing Jayne of being little more than a hypocrite.

"Hardly. I call her crazy to her face. Admittedly, other than Zoë, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have at my back in a fight, but that doesn't make the girl any saner than anunder-medicated asylum or lessen the fact that she scares me rigid on a reglar basis. Anyway," Jayne continued, "there's a very large difference between defending someone's character and treating them like a retarded five-year-old." The mercenary sneered at the companion, "To quote the bard, 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'

"As if you're any better."

"Than who? You? The others? We're not talking about personal morality here. I don't try and wrap myself and what I do in euphemisms – I. Kill. People. It's what I do. I'm not ashamed of it and, more to the point, I don't try and protect them that's around me from it and I sure as hell don't try and play Humpty-fucking-Dumpty with other people."

If Inara had understood the allusion was unclear, she certainly didn't let it distract her from her current train of thought

"…And to think, we're putting you in front of children…" the Companion managed to make the statement equal parts dubious and bemused. While she didn't hold any genuine concerns for the children, at least with respect to the mercenary losing control and shooting one of them – as she might have done with Mal who, while a paragon of pure and good intentions, was not so strong with the self-control or the think first aspect of planning – she was fully aware that, after a term of Cobb-style schooling, the potential for a goodly proportion of the students to have been turned into larcenous little vagrants with an assortment of bad habits that would shame a convention of Reavers was statistically high and, while she wasn't overly concerned that Jayne would turn out to be some sort of latter-day Fagin, she wasn't too sure the role the mercenary would play in keeping his charges on the straight and narrow was one that would be approved by the better business bureau, the police or anyone else who had a strict interpretation of what constituted moral rectitude, the finer aspects of property ownership, or the proper socially deferential relationship with one's elders and betters.

As Jayne considered his response, the room seemed to close in around the mercenary, the shadows wreathing his face, growing darker, maybe it was due to the subject in question being children and Jayne having the reputation he did, but it was also that while Jayne wasn't – by any stretch of the imagination, let alone the standards of a highly trained companion - a paragon of purity, he was certainly not the personification of the Mephistotelian visage she was imagining; and, as if to prove her point – and to scare the hell out of her – Jayne agreed with her.

"…That was one of my main objections to the – and I use the _nomenclature_ advisedly - plan as proposed by Mal and Li-Han. Irrespective of whether or not the ruse is to place a trained fighter in the school environment, I am concerned at the impact such a placement will have on the children. While it is true that I make no apologies for who I am that doesn't mean I want walk down the centre of the street waving a banner announcing it: at least not in the sense of 'trained killer here', please send your children to me…" probably via Hamlin, he added mentally. "Anyway," he continued "children aren't stupid. They might not have the sophistication (which is a polite way of saying they don't lie as well) of an adult, but they are far more likely to call you on the fucking great elephant standing in the middle of the room instead of ctreating a scenario out of paper-thin niceties to whitewash the situation."

"African or Asian?" came a quiet, voice from outside the galley. The voice was soon followed by a mane of long brown hair and a pair of lambent, and extremely curious, eyes, which proceeded to seat themselves at the mercenary's feet.

If the Companion had been somewhat confused by Jayne's direct assessment of events, the addition of the walking tangent that was River to the conversation generated whole new levels of potential askance-based looks. Jayne resumed his commentary.

"The thing is, I'm not really sure how to approach the education of children. Childlike intellects I can deal with, the Captain and Wash have given me plenty of practise in that respect; but I have to admit that I'm at a loss with respect to curriculum. I mean, I can't take the six year olds out to the back field and teach them how to file a snipers rifle and I sure as hell not gonna teach the ten year olds advanced knife fighting after playtime; but I tell you now, I'd feel far more comfortable doing that than sitting on an undersized stool and reading a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to them."

"What about Where the Wild Things Are?" inquired River, I like that story, there's monsters and dinner and pyjamas and monsters…"

"River…" Jayne interrupted, absently, "shut up." He turned to look Inara directly in the eyes, "and what do I do if things go wrong."

"For a start, Jayne, I imagine there will be a degree of curriculum support, and guidance, provided, but…" inquired the Companion, warily "What do you mean by 'wrong'?"

"If I have to discipline one of the little bastards; it's not like I can shoot them and I imagine that the school board would be less than impressed if I decked someone's little darling. I can just imagine a meeting of the school board being convened by a hysterical parent demanding my tripes because I hospitalised their baby." The large man sighed mightily, "Things would be so much easier if I actually knew what I was supposed to be doing. It's one thing, standing around like an ignorant twat, when you're actually know why you're supposed to be acting that way, it's another thing to be standing around like a clueless, ignorant twat."

Inara smiled beatifically, "That's alright, Jayne, I'm sure you'll do an outstanding job of standing around like a twat, irrespective of whether you know the reasons for doing so."

Jayne shrugged, "While it may be true that I walked right into that, Inara, remember, that while I retain a degree of restraint with regards to shooting children, that same courtesy doesn't extend to you. Now, do you have any helpful suggestions, if so I'd appreciate hearing them. I know you had a teaching role at that whore academy of yours, at least – as it were - when you were between assignments. So tell me, how did you punish the little whores when they screamed out the wrong name?"


	12. Jayne: The unMusical

_Well, who'd a thunk it, another chapter – only took me 3-4 months this time…sorry. I have to admit, the direction of this chapter was akin to an eel having a seizure in that it wouldn't stay still long enough for me to grab and set it straight…_

_Oh well…_

_I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to various authors, musicians and lyricists for the abuse I'm subjecting their creations to. In particular, the creators of The Pirates of Penzance and My Fair Lady have suffered unduly in the creation of this chapter. I'm not so sure about apologising to the Sex Pistols, but you get the idea…_

_I have disclaimered in a while – so consider it done. I own nothing that's not mine, although if I could get away with the 'What's not nailed down is mine and what nailed down and I can pry up and carry away is also mine' school of thought, I would. _

_As always, I would be grateful for any reviews tendered – although I don't really deserve any for the amount of time it take me to update. I – and I mean it – promise to do better with the next chapter…_

* * *

_Guns don't kill people. It's those damn bullets. Guns just make them go really really fast._

**-- Jake Johanson**

_I stick my neck out for nobody._

**-- Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca"**

**Manly's Maxim:**

_Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion_

_with confidence._

* * *

"_I'm putting on my top hat,  
tying up my white tie, brushing off my tails.  
I'm duding up my shirt front,  
putting in shirt studs, polishing my nails."_

Jayne Cobb might have been a diamond in the rough, in need – according to some – of a few thousand years of crushing pressure under an ocean, but a diamond nonetheless; despite this, he couldn't carry a tune…in a bucket. In fact, Jayne's singing was so bad it was a standing affront to the tone deaf throughout both the Alliance, and the rim, and in fact, if you believed certain members of Serenity, people had actually moved to the rim simply to escape Jayne Cobb's singing. His family – irrespective of the unlikely eventuality of their meeting anyone from Serenity (or a traumatized and deeply undercover music lover) - would have been in total agreement; as far as they knew, Jayne was the only person in history banned from the pig-calling contest at the local fair because of the psychological scars inflicted on the pigs…and the other participants…well, actually, pretty much anything human, animal, live – and in some cases – dead within a ten mile radius (of Jayne).

Jayne, being an honest sort, was generally in agreement with the, almost, universal assessment of his singing: the choir-mistress being the sole exception to prove the rule, although her testimony can be seen as somewhat biased inasmuch as her given testimony amounted to something along the lines 'I don't care about your singing just don't stop f….' (And we'll draw a polite veil over proceedings at that point).

Today was the day, Jayne's first day of school. Well, first day as a teacher at school; his large and burly frame would have looked somewhat ridiculous awkwardly perched at one of the desks provided for the children.

While it was true that the mercenary was nervous – to the extent that he wasn't able to take any weapons in with him, and being weaponless always made Jayne nervous – he had managed to overcome his wariness at being placed in the position of teaching; as River had said: 'they can't turn out any worse than I did', which, Jayne had to concede, was perfectly true. But then, Jayne wasn't planning on drilling holes in any of the little bastard's heads and reordering the functioning parts of their brains: assuming, of course, that children actually had functioning parts to their brains. Memories of his own childhood had him pretty much convinced that the immature human system ran on a combination of sugar, adrenalin and water, and where the only thing that could be said to even resemble thought, or the basic process thereof, was a combination of stimulus and response and a form of primitive telepathy that intimated to its receiving unit (AKA: the child) that it was about to get in trouble and the safest course of action was to teleport to a point somewhere else.

Jayne had had a preternatural ability, when he was young for (a) knowing when the proverbial shit was about to hit the fan and (b) being able to teleport to a place of safety: admittedly, Jayne's general mode of teleportation had two wheels and a bell, but the basic idea was sound enough in principle.

…And speaking of bells, or the lack of them…

"Who would have thought it, you actually scrub up quite well, Jayne"

While it would have taken a fair amount of velocity to transport the large mercenary through the bulkhead the end result was a close-run thing.

"What d'you want, Zoe? Other than to scare me out of my britches, that is."

"Captain wants to know where you are; he's worried about your being late to school. Can't be late to school on the first day, Jayne, wouldn't look none too professional."

"I don't know why he's after fussing like a professional virgin at a brothel, like as not he's been so full of advice of late that its done near made my ears bleed…"

"…And made you revert to your standard yokelisms…"

Would you prefer it if I broke into song?" The mercenary grinned, although the light of a true smile never reached his eyes, "I have just the thing…:

_Without pulling it the tide comes in,  
without your twirling it the Earth can spin,  
Without your pulling it, the tide comes in  
Without your twirling it, the earth can spin  
Without your pushing them, the clouds roll by,  
If they can do without you, ducky, so can I  
I shall not feel alone without you  
I can stand on my own without you  
So go back in your shell  
I can do bloody well  
Without..."_

If Zoë was shocked by the recitation, she didn't show it; instead she was trying to hide the pain of Jayne's determined search for the right notes to a song he was definitely not entitled to be anywhere near, especially with the banshee wail that passed itself off as his singing voice.

"I reckon if you go anywhere near the captain with that, Jayne, the he won't worry none about your being professional, he'll just shoot you on the spot to save the children from a lifetime of potential trauma. Job or no job, captain ain't one to be needlessly cruel."

Cobb rolled his eyes; sometimes he wondered if would simply be easier to smack his crewmates between the eyes with a piece of wood. He'd thought about speaking slowly and using smaller words but as far as even his vast was intellect aware there weren't any smaller words than those of one syllable and breaking things down into morphemes and phonemes was just asking for trouble. Frankly, at times – and with acknowledged exceptions in their recognised areas of expertise - Jayne was fairly certain that unless given a map, a flashlight and two hands the majority of Serenity's crew would have difficulty finding their own backsides, the notable exceptions being the doctor, who had already located his fundament so he could insert his head and Zoë (because she'd shoot him if she even caught him thinking it). Giving up, he decided that he'd try a serious answer and see what happened.

"…Naw; I'm just tryin' to counteract everyone's jawin', is all. I tell you true, Zoe", said Jayne, returning to the manner of speech to which the woman (and the others on board Serenity) had become accustomed to of late, "as soon as this school shindig, and I use the term shindig instead of the infinitely more appropriate 'insanity', was confirmed, I've had every man and their dog offerin' advice on this that and the other. Between Wash runnin' a role-play with his damn dinosaurs and the Shepherd threatening me with that special hell of his if I so much as corrupt one iota of those precious little souls, it's getting so I can't turn around. It's almost gotten to the point where I'm askin' Mal to put me in the airlock, leastwise that way I'll get some peace and quiet."

"I could always shoot you." the women noted, albeit facetiously, "Admittedly, that'd mean we'd need to dress some other poor fool up in their Sunday best for this dog-and-pony show and, I have to admit" she added _sotto voce_ "that while I happen to think that we're making a hell of a mistake putting you in front of a bunch of impressionable beings, your predicament is providing me with a rather large degree of amusement if only because you can't react like you would wish."

"What? Shoot someone?"

"No," grinned Zoe, "get drunk and start a bar-fight. Although, I have to admit, that your behaviour, of late, has led me to believe that you're more likely to sniff disdainfully, demonstrate your infinitely superior wisdom by resorting to some obscure literary quotation and then stomp off to your room with a book."

The mercenary looked at his female counterpart, before smirking slightly in response, "People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."

"Am I going to know where you've quoted that from?"

Jayne laughed, "Probably not, but it seemed appropriate given the requirements of the situation, namely, to beat you about the head with my own immeasurable superiority."

"I've survived worse," Zoe noted, "or perhaps that should be, longer, beatings. Seriously, though, Jayne, how're you doing? You ready for this?'

Jayne shrugged minutely and sat down on his cot, the momentary humour of before apparently forgotten as he gave due consideration to Zoë's question. "This sounds remarkably like a conversation I had with Inara the other day, albeit with a lot less petulance on your part and a lot less insults on mine. Seriously?" he waited for the woman's affirming nod, "I don't think you can ever be entirely ready for something new. Sure, you can train and practise and study until you're blue in the face but that is never going to completely replicate the actual experience, especially, I might add, when you're dealing with a random element like people and the even more random component of said species, namely, their offspring. Let's face it, what I'm to, ostensibly, teach – and I use that term in its widest possible application – the little buggers is relatively simplistic. While I don't have Wash' gift for maths or Kaylee's innate grasp of science, I can muddle through well enough to convince a group of six to fifteen year-olds that I know what I'm doing. No, I think my more, immediate, and genuine, concern is controlling my instinctive reactions to situations around the kids and, further, when removed from the classroom situation, retaining the ability to react…err…instinctively…or, perhaps that should be, appropriately?"

Zoë laughed "So what you're saying is shoot the bad guys and not the kids; a plan which is eminently sensible."

"As opposed to being imminently sensible, indicating that we'll get there in the end…with maybe one or two kids getting in the way of the odd stray bullet until either: the bad guys learn to shoot straight or we stop using the children for cover." Again, Jayne shrugged, "Of course, if they get out of hand then I might have to use one of them as an example, although I'm not so sure how the board of education here on Bellerophon would feel if I nailed one of their precious darlings to the door as an object lesson."

The woman nodded sententiously, "One must encourage discipline in the classroom, even if it is at the cost of public relations."

Jayne snorted. "I wouldn't let Captain 'it's a payin' customer' Reynolds hear you say that, he'd probably keel-haul you, or have you up on mutiny charges.

The Amazon shrugged, she'd been yelled at by the Captain in the past and she expected to be yelled at by him in the future; didn't mean she was going to pay him no mind – it was like the weather, put a raincoat on and you didn't get wet, don't listen to Mal on one of his rampages and she didn't need to fight the urge to shoot him in the kneecaps.

* * *

**The Previous Evening:**

Speaking of the captain, Mal was starting to think he'd made a mistake. Sure, the initial deal sounded like a good thing at the time (actually it sounded like manna from Heaven, but that's neither here nor there) certainly the coin he was going to generate from the arrangement with Li-Han was enough to keep Serenity in the sky for the better part of two years (by the accounting of Earth-That-Was time, that is). Now, however, he was having second thoughts. Primarily, he was concerned that Li-Han wasn't telling him the entire story – as the crew, _en masse, ad infinitum _had been tellin' him. Sure, two years worth of coin was pretty generous payment for simply stickin' one of your crew in an obvious setup; even considerin' the concepts of reparation, insurance and all those other things that implied that if something got broke it would be replaced. However, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out the reasons why, Mal was starting to think that a live, overly annoying (and underly clean, if you listened to the doctor) – mercenary, was worth more than two years potential spending money – something about birds and hands in bushes or some such springing to mind. Perhaps it was that he had been forced, in the previous few weeks, to accept the fact that Jayne wasn't the undiscovered relative of a lost Neanderthal tribe he had assumed that he was. (Having one's illiteracy rammed down one's throat tended to make one aware of one's shortcomings fairly rapidly although, he again had to admit, it was worth the price of admission to see the smug look that usually graced the doctor's face wiped off with whiplash force as his previously assumed intellectual whipping boy taught the effete core-bred nonce a lesson in literature, cultural history and classical allusion – at least that's what Mal has thought it was about, he'd got lost after the first few words uttered in something that wasn't English or Chinese).

It was also true, he had to admit, that he had a tendency to jump into things that sounded to good to be true and this particular venture had seemed better than that. Admittedly, Inara was going to have a field day if it all turned to custard; even if it was Jayne who'd be turned into said custard. However Mal wasn't entirely sure whether the Companion, accomplished actress that she was, would be able to find time to shed a crocodile tear or two for the mercenary in between bouts of telling Mal that 'she'd told him so'. Such behaviour, generally, caused the captain to ponder, as he gazed meditatively into the black, if smug superiority was a required course, one taught at the Companion chapterhouses, or if it was simply some sort of Sexually transmitted Disease endemic to the Companion population.

Reynolds had to admit he was worried, worried about Jayne or, more correctly, worried that he might've dropped the big man into something he wouldn't – or couldn't - get himself out of. It wasn't that he particularly cared for the mercenary (on a personal level) but his peculiar code of personal honour didn't allow for him setting up people without warning, which was similar in conception to the firing squad leader asking the condemned if they had – other than a Pixie Caramel - any last requests, before the gentlemen at the non-lethal end of the guns lined up for the more formalised part of the proceedings. While the mercenary might have been an overly-smart, foul-mouthed irritant he was Mal's foul-mouthed irritant - well, more correctly, Serenity's - and whatever accusations you could level at the Captain of Serenity, disloyalty to his own wasn't one of them or, as River had suggested one 'evening' as she covered piloting duties for Wash, 'misery did love company'.

Currently, however, his immediate concern – well, not so much concern as a passing reflection on the appropriateness of it all - was that the rest of the crew were laying book on what Jayne was going to do to the children placed in his care. As a captain and by default, leader, he had to consider how his crew would be perceived by those they came into contact with as future employment, at least within the current pig's ear that was the current galactic setup – depended almost totally on word of mouth. Trust was paramount. It was also a fragile commodity. Mal hated to think how Serenity would fare gaining legitimate work in the future if word got out that the crew found the time to gamble on the likelihood of their tame killer performing any one of a number of indignities on a group of innocents. Didn't even have to happen, rumour was enough, for rumour galloped about the galaxy with the speed of a yapping dog (that could move many times faster than the speed of light and broadcast simultaneously on multiple frequencies).

Making his way up to the cockpit of the ship, and easing through the narrow opening, he quietly lowered himself into the co-pilot's chair, taking a moment to get comfortable; he then turned to look at his pilot who was clearly riveted – riveted in the sense that he was rigid with boredom - by the night-time desert landscape.

"Anything happening?"

"Depends what you mean by 'happening'. If 'happening' can be said to consist of the odd quadruped out in search on a semi-ambulatory meal, then I would suggest that the view outside the window represents a cornucopia of exotic metropolitan extremes, if your tastes run to something slightly more bipedal then I would imagine that you're shit out of luck and that you'd get more excitement from going to bed with a good book; I'm sure Jayne could lend you one if you asked nicely."

The captain winced slightly, albeit with a degree of relief as Wash had provided him with a neat segue into his predetermined line of conversation."So what're the odds?"

Wash blinked owlishly at the man next to him; clearly, the excitement of the evening had taken a toll of his ability to process complex propositions "Of…"

"…Of Jayne nailing one of the kids to the blackboard."

"Ummmm, Mal, I know Bellerophon is situated towards the arse-end of the verse an' all, but I don't think they're so primitive as to still be usin' a blackboard. That bein' said, an' all, it's currently standing at about 10-1; the current favourite in the betting odds involves Jayne hanging one of the little beggars from a light fitting and using them as a piñata, with Vera being the club of choice."

"That'd never happen."

"What? Jayne us a kid as a piñata?"

Mal took a moment to grin internally at the image, "No, use Vera as a club – he loves that gorram weapon far too much."

"Point."

"So what else do you have lined up?"

The pilot managed to look disingenuous, "What do you mean 'lined up'?"

"Well normally if someone is running book around here it's you."

"Well not this time."

"If not you, then who?"

"Would you believe, Inara?"

"Isn't that against her holier than thou Companion principle-y things. Heaven forefend that she lower herself to the level of us lesser mortals."

Wash shrugged, "That as may be, but it would appear she's quite happy to scrape the bottom of the barrel when predicting a given series of actions from her favourite mercenary."

"You know," Mal commented slyly, "I never thought I would hear the words 'favourite' and 'mercenary' used in a sentence involving Inara."

"This whole damn mission is creating situations we weren't expectin', Mal. First of all we discover that Jayne isn't a Neolithic throwback…"

"Neolithic?"

Wash smirked, "Jayne's not the only one who can use big words…Anyway, we've gone from discovering our resident primate has a brain, to sticking him in a school, in front of children, no less; tell me, which part of this doesn't scream at you that that annoying git from the Waves isn't going to jump out an' announce 'Candid Holo'. Admittedly," Wash amended, "anyone stupid enough to do that in front of this crew, with what we've experienced of late, faces a pretty fair chance of gettin' shot, but you get the idea."

The captain chuckled, "I have to admit that you've got a point, Wash. If someone had said to me that Jayne would be teaching children, I would've starting expectin' Niska to turn up in a Santa suit around Christmastime." Both men paused to shudder at that particular image. Considering what the psychopathic crimelord had done to those considered nice, namely Wash and himself, the idea of what he'd do to those considered naughty was distinctly alarming. "Scratch that, Wash, that's an image I can do without."

The pilot nodded his agreement, "Won't find me argufyin' with that, Mal. Anyway, to get back to your original question; currently, the odds are as follows. General mayhem is leading at 2:1."

"What constitutes general mayhem?"

Wash grinned. "Children acting like they do at home: the general reckoning is that as Jayne won't be able to exert his normal modes of influence the children will run riot."

"I hesitate to ask, but what do you mean by 'normal modes of influence'? Not even Jayne is going to shoot innocent children."

The pilot regarded his friend with a combination of wide-eyed wonder and mischievous devilment, then, as if speaking to a particularly slow Alliance soldier he inquired "You do know that there's no such thing as an innocent child, don't you, Mal?"

"That book of yon Shepherd maintains that all children are innocent; or at least born that way."

Wash snorted, "I'd wager good money that the folks that wrote said book didn't have no children of their own; probably weren't even Uncles, even Uncles know that children ain't no purely driven snow-creature."

"Like a yeti?"

Both men jumped at the sound of the voice before turning in their chairs to see two luminous eyes staring at them from the darkness of the cockpit's entrance.

"Dammit, River! You're getting' more and more like that disappearin' and reappearin' purple cat Jayne was rabbiting on about the other day, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm going to put a bell on you. A large, heavy bell…and…" he continued "What the hell is a yeti?"

"I'm guessin' it's some sorta snow creature," inserted Wash, innocently.

"A yeti is large and hairy and goes grrrrrr."

"Perchance, does it carry a gun named Vera?"

"Perchance, Wash? What is perchance? You're starting to sound like that Shakespeare fella – in fact, I think Jayne's transmogrification is starting to make us all sound like a bunch of scholars and closet aesthetes and nothing like the ruggedly roguish space-pirates we're supposed to be."

"But we're not pirates, Mal."

The captain shrugged, "It sounded better than ruggedly-roguish semi-legal merchants with overt authority issues."

"Please tell me we're not about to burst into song?" pleaded Wash, the appearance of River having taken the conversation into a tangential space that made the bleak, black-souled home of the Reavers seem warm and inviting and while the ginger-haired pilot was prepared to skirt the edges of the surreal, especially if said surreality involved saurian dioramas, there was a limit, and that limit was song.

"…_I am the very model of a modern Major General,  
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,  
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical  
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;…  
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,  
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,  
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,  
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse._

"…Gorrammit, River…"

"…_It was on the good ship Venus By Christ, ya shoulda seen us  
The figurehead was a whore in bed  
And the mast, a mammoth penis _

_The captain of this lugger  
He was a dirty bugger  
He wasn't fit to shovel shit  
From one place to another…"_

"My ears, my virgin ears," moaned Wash.

"You ain't no virgin," noted River, "unless that racket you an' Zoe was makin' last night was something other than what it should be…"

"You eavesdropping again, girl?"

"Not at all Captain, unless you call burying your head under a mattress and three pillows eavesdropping?"

Mal smirked and glanced somewhat archly at his friend and pilot, "She does have a point you know; you and the little woman were a mite loud last night…"

The ginger-haired pilot continued to moan piteously…

* * *

**Present Day:**

Mal met Jayne on the companionway as the mercenary prepared to leave for the school.

"All ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be, I guess?"

"Remember, don't shoot the kids."

"Christ Mal, show a little faith, would you?"

"If I didn't have faith, do you think I would have agreed to it?"

"The amount of money you're getting' I reckon your own mother probably isn't safe."

"I'm not that much of a mercenary, Jayne."

"So Zoe says, Mal, so Zoe says; I'll be seein' you."

Captain Malcolm Reynolds watched his mercenary until he disappeared from sight then, turning towards his ship, he sighed, it was going to be a long and difficult wait.


	13. A Funereal Kind of March

I guess, by my standards, this constitutes an incredibly fast update…it would have been quicker if I hadn't been distracted by Diablo 2 (again) but, more importantly, studying for my anatomy course for my massage therapy. Oh well…

A few notes on this chapter: I haven't beta-ed it at all: I don't have the time or inclination: I am normally a pretty good self-editor so any remaining mistakes,_ non-sequiturs,_ rubbish in entirely the fault of someone else…

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Morgan5318 and JadedOne47 and Illyriel for some helpful and thoughtful comments on my last chapter – your input positively influenced my thinking on this chapter…

As always, thank you to those who read this story and to those of you who review – it's clichéd to note that your input feeds my muse but it DOES make me feel like my existence isn't completely meaningless grin

* * *

_There are three rules for writing a novel;_

_ Unfortunately, no one knows__ what they are._

_**Somerset Maugham**_

_**Manly's Maxim:**_

_Logic_ _is a systematic method of coming to the wrong _

_conclusion with confidence_

_**Barker's Proof:**__  
Proofreading is more effective after publication_.

_The future is a race between education and catastrophe.  
__**-- H.G. Wells**_

* * *

(A different) perspective is an amazing thing.

Not so much in the sense that the opportunity to view something differently moves such into the realms of life-changing events but rather because it present the opportunity for preconceptions and, indeed, misconceptions to be challenged and, albeit – considering the reinforced building material that constitutes the majority's prejudices and attitudes – infrequently, changed. Thus it was for Jayne Cobb as he walked the dusty road towards the school.

Admittedly, the opportunity presented to reflect was somewhat superseded by Mal's refusal to let the mercenary take the car to school – as it were- and he spent an invigorating and wholly non-repetitive quarter hour presenting a variety of improbable parental combinations for the good captain to the aether with the kindest, from a biological perspective, being the unlikely mating of Ebenezer Scrooge (B.G. – before ghost(s)) and a pre-menstrual grizzly bear.

Jayne cast his mind back – although, in a temporal sense it wasn't that long ago – to when he, the captain and Zoë had first taken the mule into the centre of the non-teeming, non-metropolis that was Bellerophon's city centre.

The predominant memory was one of dust, of a parched barren, landscape filled, if not with a sense of desolation, then at least with one that bespoke someone in need of a long cold drink and, if it wasn't too much to ask, some shade; and that was just the plants. Jayne wasn't, on the whole, too sure about an environment where the cacti had obviously sent a deputation to the local plant union giving notice of strike action and where the tumbleweeds were tumbling with a purpose, that purpose being to slip unnoticed aboard the nearest transport out of there.

Even the endemic desert wildlife displayed neither wildness, or for that matter, life and as a result Bellerophon has developed – in a remarkably quick time when considered in evolutionary terms – a peculiar and wholly unique set of fauna. A case in point being the local members of the snake family, which had developed into a whole new genus, _serpentia lethargii (_the only known member of the serpent family – according to respected intergalactic herpetologists – that captured its prey by lying still, with its mouth open and waiting for dinner to be blown (or to run) into it: additionally, _serpentia lethargii_ was also known to have the slowest known metabolism in the galaxy, and it's remarkable properties were slowly being investigated by the cosmetic and bio-rejuvenation industries).

Amongst the spare and desultory wilderness the odd abode began to appear. Clearly, this far out from the town centre it wasn't to be expected that a plethora of mansions and Wright-inspired dwellings would be the norm, or even the abnorm, but the ramshackle contrivances posing as accommodation left little to the imagination and resembled nothing so much as a wattle-and-daub huts that had given up on life and let itself go, albeit there wasn't actually enough water to make wattle or daub. Jayne actually took a moment to stare in a state of bemused wonder at one building – although vertical contrivance would have been far more apt an expression as there was little-to-no indication that something resembling organised construction had actually taken place at some point in the edifice's existence – and marvelled at the fact that not only were the laws of gravity seemingly held in abeyance but that numerous other physical laws also seemed to have been subverted in some fashion; specifically, that what went up must indeed come down (probably, as Jayne surmised, because the structure appeared to be at war with itself over the concept of 'up'). Newton's laws of motion also appeared to be taking a battering causing Jayne to briefly wonder if he hadn't stumbled across some dimensional tesseract that had deposited him in the nether reaches of River Tam's mind. Jayne shuddered and mentally backed away from the concept of architecture inspired by the machinations of the mercurial girl's mind although, he mused, it would serve the Alliance right if a wave of inverted, spinning pyramids suddenly became the norm for residential housing on the Core worlds.

A dog barked.

It was a mangy cur, one that held an expression somewhere between aggression and plaintive longing. The cynic in Jayne noted that the plaintive look was probably a remote response generated somewhere in the deepest recesses of the digestive tract as the beast looked somewhat malnourished, but there was something else, something that gave mute appeal on an entirely different level, causing the large man to regard to animal more closely.

Although no expert in matters zoological, Jayne was fairly certain that the animal was, whilst no longer a pup, some way distant from full growth or, at the least, something approaching emotional maturity – certainly, there was something about the set of the ears that implied that if that interesting looking biped cared to throw something spherical in an outbound trajectory then he would be willing to engage in a process of retrieval: several times in fact. There was also something about the eyes that told Jayne, long an expert in matters of world-weary jadedness that the dog still retained a degree of, if not innocence, optimism for the reflexive cringe that bespoke long experience with boots, curse words and the various other accoutrements of outrageous fortune weren't present. At a guess, Jayne surmised that the animal was probably the pet of one of the local families or, if not that, then was familiar enough to those in the area that it was occasionally fed by, and interacted with, the local children.

However, Jayne Cobb was a man on a mission and, as such, didn't have time to humour the plaintive wiles of animal welfare. If he'd had the time he may well have contacted the local branch of the Stellar/National Animal Rescue League, as he retained a soft spot for animals, a distant memory from his childhood. Hi family had always had animals be it the strays his sister brought home on a regular basis, to his father's faithful huntaway, who was rheumy-eyed and ancient before Jayne himself had started school. Then there were his mother's chickens. The 'Chickens' Cobb' appeared to have inhabited the same genetic code that had previously belonged to the Cobb protozoa. Reminiscent of a street gang – with less manners – and having the social sensibilities of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Chickens' Cobb terrorized the local surrounds, harassing children, bailing up postmen and terrifying livestock; they were a force beyond the law, a force of nature: the great chicken god's revenge. Jayne had rather liked them, especially that head chicken, which displayed a rudimentary - and wholly vindictive - intelligence that was bleakly magnificent in its malevolence: he had never forgiven the posse of local farmers who had cornered the chicken and, in a vicious battle, killed it dead. Whilst mourning the chicken's loss, Jayne had taken some small satisfaction in knowing that several of the men would father no more offspring, that and the fact that the chicken made a damn fin casserole. However, this was neither the time nor place for reminiscence and sentimentality and, anyway, with the way his week was going he was fairly certain that if he showed the dog an ounce of sympathy it would shed on his suit and vomit its breakfast over his shoes. Animals were like that. Thus he turned his back on the animal and continued his journey.

The dog, being a dog (or, if you prefer, a contrary son of a bitch) followed in his wake.

Despite the apparent desolation of the landscape, Jayne didn't pause to question how anyone could live here; home was always where you made it and, for people on the rim (or near enough to it if one wasn't a denizen of the Alliances overly-gentrified core) there was often a whole lot more 'making' going on than anything else. Rich or poor you either played the hand you were dealt or, as was often the case in those situations where it was man versus environment, you died. He respected that. That respect was also the reason behind him never questioning, nor challenging, Mal's profoundly stubborn, and inevitably terminal Brown-Coat tendencies. Brown-Coat tradition was one of self-made men (and women) challenging those who would have told them how to live, how to – as it were - 'make'. That being said, there was a large difference between respecting the genesis of a person's beliefs -and the reasons for holding to them in an ongoing fashion – and tolerating said person's reflexive bias, suspicion and essential Luddite malice in dealing with all and sundry who subscribed to the opposing philosophical viewpoint; of course, that had always been the problem with radicals and fanatics that, in their screams for tolerance and acceptance of their viewpoint no-one else was allowed a differing viewpoint. While it was true that Mal, due to the commercial nature of his ventures had to be more, and Jayne laughed inwardly at the idea, circumspect that most of his stripe, nevertheless the frothing and spitting and snarling from the safety of his precious ship was often more than Jayne could take; if being a mercenary had taught the man anything it was the simple truism that opinions were like arseholes, everybody had one and Jayne had neither the urge or inclination to inspect everyone's…opinion.

The dusty outskirts of the city, at least in terms of the Rims definition of the concept (several non-mud buildings gathered in something resembling a group that didn't have a central fire and a wall of sharpened sticks) was beginning to segue from the even dustier outskirts of the, for want of a better word, non-city, although in Jayne's humble opinion dust and dirt were dust and dirt, it didn't matter where you happened to find them or what you happened to call them; although citified folk tended to lump it all under the somewhat ambiguous terms of 'landscaping' or 'future public works' or, in translation: 'organised dirt' and 'dirt to be organised in the near future' – although, in terms of public works the term 'near future' was one measured in geological rather than linear time.

From the instructions Jayne had been given he knew he was to expect the school to come into range pretty soon. He had be told that while the school wasn't in the centre of the thriving metropolis _(sic)_

that was Bellerophon's capital it was still a high-quality facility and that it had been deliberately placed so in order to provide the opportunity for a quality education for the poor denizens of the area: apparently, the founders of the school subscribed to some liberal philosophy about education being a right and not a privilege for the rich; which probably explained why the school was out on the Rim and not in the Core. Any one of the inbred Core elite would have been only too pleased to inform an interested party that the role of education was to keep the rich and powerful and informed and the poor anything but – if the poor started getting ideas then they might start demanding rights and society as they knew it would collapse: the more effete and oxygen deprived cited Reaver society as a case in point; Jayne had, perhaps unfortunately, never had the opportunity to discuss educational prospects with a Reaver and was therefore unable to ascertain their views on the subject.

As he trudged around a bend in the road, the school buildings came in to view, Jayne was able to ascertain with a remarkable degree of certainty that this was indeed his destination due to the large weathered sign that was attached to the outer wall: 'School', it proclaimed.

* * *

The buildings, for there were more than one, were – in seeming defiance of the local building code – sturdily constructed of washed river stone: of course Jayne was only assuming such as the only time precious he had seen such stones was, strangely enough, by a river, how in the name of the almighty they had managed to find a river on this godforsaken backwater was something that the mercenary wasn't about to question but he couldn't deny that the stone facade lent the buildings an impressive air. What was also undeniable was that he had a reception committee.

It was a moot point as to whether 'committee' was the correct term for the welcoming party insofar as there was only a single person standing at the gate and no committee Jayne had ever heard of had a quorum of one, although, judging by the waves of presence coming from the figure, Jayne figured that perhaps this 'one person' was plenty.

"Mr Cobb?" inquired the figure, pausing briefly for an affirming nod from the larger man before continuing, "I am Jeremiah Doom, I bid you welcome to our school."

Cobb visibly winced at the voice, which was reminiscent of nails scraped down a blackboard, long, incredibly sharp nails at that. There was also a dry, dusty quality to Doom's voice that obviously came from somewhere other than his current abode on this oversized dustbowl – it was a voice that bespoke age and secrets long, and best, forgotten. For all its seeming age, the voice held more than a hint of menace and the promise of consequence; in short it made Niska's best attempts at intimidation appear akin to the silk-pantalooned pageboy at a particularly camp wedding.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the welcome was the Doom was obviously sincere in his greeting. The mercenary shuddered to consider the aspect Doom would assume if mildly perturbed and the thought of such a man angry conjured images of a Faustian nightmare with Mephistopheles himself in full cry.

Still, what could he do? He was here now and it would look unprofessional if he turned and ran so early into his contract; that and he wasn't partial to getting shot by the captain if he forfeited the agreement made in the captain's name; Reynolds was fairly narrow about things like that.

* * *

Jeremiah Doom regarded the tall, physically imposing figure in front of him. Cobb appeared to be a suitable sort of man, certainly he appeared strong and well-tempered, his eyes holding the aura of one who knew death as brother and friend as well as the dark-souled reaper that knew no remorse, that impartially acted without recourse to morality or emotion; yes, a suitable man indeed.

"I see you are punctual, Mister Cobb, an encouraging trait, if one not as common as it once was; when I was young the consequences for tardiness were far more…" Doom paused briefly in his commentary as he clearly sought the proper adjective, the pause giving Jayne reason to ponder just how old Doom was, the words were clear enough, however, the inflection bore a hint of something less so: "…exacting…" Doom's voice resumed, "nowadays, there is, perhaps, too much leeway given to those who would abrogate their responsibilities, wouldn't you agree, Mister Cobb."

Jayne was taken aback, not so much by the question but rather by the clear inference in Doom's manner that he expected the younger man to agree with him, not simply out of courtesy, but due to the simple logic of the statement; Jayne decided that the best response was an equivocal one.

"I'm not sure what I'm agreeing to, Mr Doom, that young people – to use your term – have a lesser degree of respect for agreed responsibility or that the consequences for such an attitude are not what they once were and, if I may infer, lead to the lessened respect for responsibility?"

Doom regarded Jayne much in the manner, the younger man imagined, a snake would regard a particularly audacious mouse that whom, on being presented with the snake's jaws, begged leave to acquire a stick to wedge them open.

"Come now, Mister Cobb, prevarication is such an ugly trait, one best reserved for politicians and lawyers" the latter was said in a somewhat mocking tone, "is not honesty the best policy?"

"That would depend," replied the mercenary.

"On?" prompted Doom, his eyes alight with a fire that bespoke more mischievous intent than malice.

"On whether or not it will get me shot, Mister Doom."

Doom chuckled soundlessly. "Splendid. Mister Cobb, I do believe that you and I are going to get along famously. Now, if you'll come this way, I'll show you to your classroom and the horror that awaits you."

Jayne shrugged; it wasn't like he could run away.

Doom, having moved a small distance from his original position turned to see if Cobb had taken the hint and was following in his wake, his expression changed from one of polite impatience to one of bemused inquiry.

"Mister Cobb, I wasn't aware that the instructions forwarded to you spoke of a requirement for teaching staff to retain a familiar."

"A…familiar?" Jayne echoed, "I'm unsure as to what you are referring, Mister Doom."

The older man cocked an eyebrow and gestured, with a minor furrow of his brow, that his companion should look behind him. Turning, Jayne espied the scrofulous canine that had accosted him earlier in his journey.

"The animal is not mine," he replied shortly.

"Have you informed the animal of such?" was the arch reply, "for he," as the dog was definitively of the male persuasion, "appears to be regarding you with a most propriety air, one that bespeaks ownership; although one cannot rightly determine who is the owner and whom is the owned."

"If I was younger, I might suggest that 'he followed me home' and, as the aphorism extends, 'can I keep him'? However, such is not the case, although it is true that I encountered the animal on my way here; may I hasten to add that, in no way did I encourage the animal to follow me – if you require, I can dispose of it with some degree of expediency."

"Come, Come, Mister Cobb, it is a dog, not a Reaver or an Alliance bureaucrat, I see no reason to inflict a measure of wholly unnecessary violence on something that has neither asked for nor, apparently, is deserving of such treatment. More pragmatically, what sort of example would it set for the children, soon to be entrusted to your care, if your immediate reaction to a perceived inconvenience is to, as I believe the vernacular goes, 'fill it full of holes'. "

Jayne Cobb knew shame at that point and he acknowledged – on a subconscious level – that sometimes, for all his learning – he was a mercenary at heart. "I wasn't always a teacher…" he acknowledged.

"…And I," noted Doom, "wasn't always an avuncular old man. We all have our crosses to bear, Mister Cobb; it does us more credit if we show a little forbearance as we carry them, now, if you'll follow me.

As the two men turned and made their way proper into the school grounds the dog chose to settle down in the shadow of the gate, the heat of the day was coming and it was better for him to be in a shaded area while he waited for his newly designated human to re-emerge.

The grounds were most impressive and, somewhat surprisingly for a planet as arid as a banker's soul, lush; inasmuch as succulents and cacti could be considered such. It was, Jayne considered as he walked beside his escort, the proliferation of varieties of, not only, a vast array of sizes – where some specimens achieved truly alarming proportions – but an extraordinary array of colours.

Doom, noticing his companion's interest, took a moment to pause by a particularly magnificent – and fierce – specimen.

"I wasn't aware that cacti grew so large," noted Jayne, as he carefully avoided the two-foot long pines that protruded aggressively from the plant.

Doom, for want of a better word, smirked. "Generally speaking, they don't..."

"…And in consideration of the fact that we're being specific; I imagine the explanation is filled with flights of mysticism and adventure?" Cobb responded, facetiously, in kind.

"Nothing of the sort; the explanation is closer to that remarkably fine line between genius and insanity. Back in the early years of Belerophon, a man, Caligari by name, came to reside here. Now Caligari or, more correctly Doctor Caligari, was a botanist by trade and something of an eccentric. Tell me, Mister Cobb," Doom segued, "have you ever seen the fantasy gardens on Paradox?"

"No, I haven't" Jayne demurred, "although I have seen representations of them, they are quite extraordinary."

"Indeed they are," Doom agreed, "and they are, or perhaps I should say were, the work of Caligari. Apparently, there was some sort of scandal - something about some of the garden's staff taking the concept of blood and bone far too literally - and Caligari was forced to retire, he chose here. "Now, the story goes, Caligari was not one to leave well enough alone and he turned his somewhat fantastic obsession with plants to the flora of Bellerophon with, as you can see, some truly remarkable results."

"Indeed," Jayne agreed.

"However," noted Doom, not all of Caligari's creations were quite so successful. Tell me, Mister Cobb, have you ever heard of an author from The Earth That Was by name of Wyndham?"

"No, I can't say that I have."

"Wyndham was, amongst other things a fantasist, a writer of speculative fiction. In one of his most famous stories he wrote of a world thrown into chaos and how, arising out of this chaos, a semi-sentient species of plant began to prey on the surviving populace. Now Caligari was, apparently, much taken with this story and he decided to play god."

"He didn't succeed, did he?" Cobb asked.

"Oh my yes," laughed Doom, more than he could have possibly have dreamed, "a dream which became somewhat inconvenient when one of his creations tracked him down and ate him."

"Oops," noted Jayne in a tragic-comic voice, before continuing in a more serious vein, "I take it the plants were destroyed at that point?"

"Not exactly," hedged Doom. "You can meet them later, if you like, some of them are guarding my estate now, shall we continue?"

* * *

The building, which Doom indicated as holding Jayne's (soon-to-be) classroom, was an eminently sensible brick affair, obviously constructed with a combination of steadfastly artisan principles and a work-ethic purloined directly from Calvinist doctrine. It looked like it could with-stand a nuclear attack, which gave it a better than even chance of surviving children – although parts of the façade gave clear indication of the effects of child vs building: fortunately, none of the indentations appeared to be severely compromising the masonry at that time.

"Now, Mister Cobb, before we enter, a few words as to your role here."

'Fabulous,' thought the mercenary, 'the other shoe'.

"Mister Cobb," continued Doom, "I am not a stupid man; nor, if you consider my past, as particularly innocent one. I am well aware that you are here for purposes other than those that are purely educational." Jayne started to object but was forestalled by an idle wave of the older man's hand. "Now, even considering that your carriage bespeaks you a man of action, the fact that you are being positioned here at the behest of Li-Han, whom I trust no further than my ability to manually launch him into orbit, tells me that something, not entirely whole is, to use the vernacular, is 'up'.

Jayne shrugged eloquently.

"Further, Mister Cobb, irrespective of the reasons for your presence, I made it clear to Li-Han that there were two things I wouldn't tolerate in my school. The first of those is someone who may prove to be a danger to the children. Now while it is clear that you are familiar with the ways and means of violence, I would suggest to you that you are not a violent man – not where it matters. The second condition I laid down, Mister Cobb, was that, above all else, this is – and always will be – a school and I would not tolerate an idiot in its halls."

Once again, Jayne found himself measured by the older man's gaze; before Doom broke into his version of a wry smile, "Again, Mister Cobb, welcome; and good luck – I would note that you are going to need it, except the wise man knows that you make your own luck. I expect you to make your own luck, Mister Cobb. Good Day."

Jayne watched the retreating back of Jeremiah Doom and wondered, once again, how he had got himself into this mess.


	14. Henry V had nothing on Jayne

OK – I'm back. I should probably note, BTW, that it's taken me 13/14 chapters but I now have actually discovered a plot. Be afraid.

First off – a request: I need a beta. Not a beta in the sense that I need someone to watch my punctuation and grammar, I can do that (myself) in my sleep – although paying attention would probably help. I need a beta in the sense that I need someone to kick me regularly in the butt to keep writing – I find I am a tad too easily distracted by life…and the PS3…thus, anyone with a deathwish? I would also note that a high level of cultural literacy and a mind like a tarpit would probably help…I like to argue.

Now. This chapter. Parts of it would appear that I was channelling Douglas Adams…not purposefully, I swear, I hate Douglas Adams (well, most of the time, anyway…).

Parts of this – and god alone knows how – are some of the best phrases I have written. Admittedly, they are surrounded by some spectacular dross, but I guess you can't win them all….hopefully, someone will find something in here they like; my money is on people getting hopelessly confused. I wrote it and I'm hopelessly confused…

Oh well…

…And, even by my standards, this chapter contains more oblique and obscure cultural references than usual…

If there is anyone left reading this I hope you enjoy it. If someone new if stumbling upon it for the first time, stick with it through the first few chapters…it gets less worse…

* * *

_job interview, n.:_

_The excruciating process during which personnel officers_

_separate the wheat from the chaff -- then hire the chaff._

_Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have _

_the right to use the editorial "we"._

_-- Mark Twain_

_It's recently come to Fortune's attention that scientists have stopped using laboratory rats in favor of attorneys. Seems that there are not only more of them, but you don't get so _

_emotionally attached. The only difficulty is that it's sometimes difficult to apply the experimental _

_results to humans._

_[Also, there are some things even a rat won't do. Ed.]_

_

* * *

  
_

There is (probably backed up by some obscure scientific principle) something, probably a theory, about classroom doors the 'verse over, that if one stands outside said door the noise emanating from the space beyond retains properties bearing a remarkable resemblance to a full-scale riot in progress irrespective of who or what actually happens to be in said space (or what who are what are doing to whom for that matter): thus it was so, as Jayne Cobb mercenary extraordinaire, paused outside his first classroom and listened to what could only be the manual disembowelling of an elephant in progress. It was also, as was clearly evident from the particular tenor of the outraged howls, that the specific implement being utilised for said procedure was extremely blunt and wielded with all the finesse of a multiple amputee with chopsticks.

Jayne was prepared to admit to concern.

Actually, Jayne was prepared to admit to absolute, mind-numbing terror for there was something in the back of his mind, something instinctual, something long buried in the racial memory, something that said 'beware, beware for it is not 'only a rabbit''. Admittedly, Jayne wasn't entirely sure what that meant, especially within the context of teaching children but, as a mercenary, a man of action, he had learnt to trust his instincts. That being said, his instincts were currently informing him that a rabbit was one of two things either: a predominantly white-furred creature, one that constantly checked its timepiece and associated with men in large hats or a piece of cheese-covered toast from Wales.

* * *

_**Cultural Digression: Rabbits:**_

Within the multi-verse that was the Alliance and the (ostensibly) associated Rim Worlds, rabbits assumed a place of significant (cultural) importance and that was not only due to the fact that the little buggers bred like…err…rabbits and thereby provided a readily available source of protein for those able to fire a projectile weapon in a reasonably straight trajectory; many a rim world had survived on rabbit (roast, grilled, barbequed, in stews, casseroles and in some oriental worlds, rabbit sashimi and sushi) during the early years of the terraforming movement as supply ships mysteriously disappeared into the deepest, darkest recesses of a bureaucrat's pocket. In fact, on some worlds, the rabbit had assumed an almost totemic status, akin to myths from the earth that was of provider goddesses who shared the providence of their bounty. On other worlds the rabbit symbolised the corruption of the Alliance and, more explicitly, the petty government functionaries who, to all intents and purposes, had cut the rim adrift. To celebrate this hatred, rim-worlders would often throw effigies of Alliance politicians into specially grown thorn fields or capture innocent alliance soldiers and cover them in tar before throwing specially gathered produce in order to see what stuck. The irony, of course, was that none of the rim-worlders could have told you what these practises actually had to do with rabbits but acknowledged that the maintenance of traditions was important.

On the core, Rabbits had something to do with timepieces, but the meaning of this was also lost in the mists of time or, more likely considering the gentrified ways of the Core-bred, the origin was conveniently forgotten as it was something likely not discussed in polite society.

* * *

Taking one, last breath in preparation, Jayne slowly eased his way into the room and, like a thundercloud stuffed into a plastic bag, the riot ceased. Abruptly. You almost expected to hear the eerie music of a spaghetti western playing softly in the background the kind that indicated a gunfight was due to commence; all they needed now was to import some tumbleweeds from the desert areas outside the city proper – of course, as was previously noted, the tumbleweeds on Bellerophon were doing everything in their power to leave the planet and, as such, the chances of importing one were slim at best. Inevitably, the silence was broken…

"Who the hell are you?"

The question came from somewhere around the mercenary's mid-thigh. Sweet, innocent blue eyes peered up at the significantly larger frame before it and repeated the original question: Jayne had to admit to being somewhat taken aback. Swearing from, at and by the captain he could handle. Zoë occasionally swore (normally, she shot first). Kaylee was quite adept and was slowly educating Simon in the process thereof (although he still sounded like the lead poof playing butch in a somewhat sly Core review). Inara retained an extensively profane lexicon, one gleaned from years of whore school (apparently, one needed to be able to encourage one's partner to bang them like a screen door in a hurricane in multiple languages). Wash didn't swear – although his dinosaurs were quite creative. Book had the bible, a book renowned for its ability to offend pretty much anyone if given the chance, as a reference. Even River could swear – although, as she constantly reminded people, as she could kill you with her brain there wasn't a lot of necessity to resort to a verbalisation of intentions. Children, however, were something else entirely.

* * *

_**Cultural Digression: Children:**_

Children played an important role in the verse. Firstly, and of primary importance, was the general acknowledgement that children constituted the pre-adult stage of the human species that proliferated throughout the wider verse - except in Reaver realms, where it was theorised that children constituted a bit-sized aperitif. Physiologically, children were, in essence, fully human, with the exception of a somewhat larger, in proportion to total body mass, head. (Some of the more radical biomorphic theorists argued that this was to accommodate the larger mouth found in the pre-adult version of the species, a feature which shrunk over time as the organism acquired knowledge of social wisdom and convention - and experienced lessons in humility at the hands of those richer, stronger, more attractive, more powerful, smarter, older, wiser - and, on the Rim – better-armed than themselves. Opponents of this theory argued that this didn't explain politicians, lawyers and used-mule dealers and thus the debate remained at an academic stalemate). While the precise processes of the biological formation of children was known and understood, the social function of children was somewhat less so; the social and cultural dimorphism of Core and Rim contributed to this. On the Rim, it was the role of children to act as unpaid help and where appropriate, bait for the larger carnivores when their parents went hunting; it was also theorised, by a social commentator by name of Swift, that children also provided a ready protein substitute at major festivals when other sources of food were in short supply. In the Core worlds, children were generally produced at communal society 'show-and-tells' in order to provide evidence that lives of mindless decadence and snobbery didn't render the men impotent and the women infertile (or frigid), when not on display, Core children were normally thoroughly polished and left on a high mantelpieces so as to avoid potential breakages of the costly accoutrements one was required to keep as an indicator of one's station.

* * *

Staring down at his abbreviated interrogator, Jayne struggled for an appropriate response…"I'm your new teacher; now get to your seat or I'll feed you to one of Headmaster Doom's plants."

Apparently, the abbreviated legs on abbreviated interrogators could move in a distinctly non-abbreviated fashion when suitably motivated.

Striding, albeit haphazardly as he deftly avoided piles of randomly scattered detritus, to the front of the classroom, Jayne turned and faced the children who now comprised his class; it was not a pleasant sight, evidently evolution had failed to gain a foothold on Bellerophon and, as a result, the children had suffered terribly. That being said, the extant rabble couldn't be used as an example of intelligent design (a long-refuted, superstitious belief from Earth-that-was) as nothing claiming to be intelligent would accept responsibility for the creation of such an accumulation of individuals. While not approaching anything a despicable as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, Jayne fully expected to see a Faganesque character slip out the door.

Of course, appearances could be deceiving; rabbits really could be 'just rabbits'.

"Good morning, I am Mister Cobb, your new teacher."

Jayne was overwhelmed by the response.

"What happened to Mister Demagogue? Did he get caught in the librarian again?" (This from a pink-faced cherub who was clearly approaching the advanced age of six or seven).

"Nah", another voice rose in dissent, "I heard that old man Doom caught him dealing bliss out of the girls toilets…of course…", the voice continued in a _faux sotto voce_ manner, that clearly indicated that the presence, or otherwise, of the new teacher was largely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, "…opinion is divided as to whether Doom canned him for the drugs or for being in the girls' toilets."

"My sister said he was a lecherous old bastard who had more hands than was natural… "

Jayne was starting to feel distinctly ignored as the conversation ebbed and flowed about him with a degree of brutal objectivity that paid no heed to age or experience. While the class appeared to be comprised of a range of ages, it was clear that age bore little relation to the potential for censorship of the excruciating detail which was increasingly forthcoming as the children dove pell-mell into their explicit remembrances of their former, and clearly unlamented, teacher.

It would have been so much easier if he could have simply fired one of his guns into the ceiling although, considering the blasé nature with which ostensible sexual depravity was being discussed, Jayne wasn't convinced that such an action would gain the required attention.

Thus, he did something worse…

…turning his back to the class he placed both hands on the blackboard and deliberately raked his fingers across its surface.

Like an electric eel connected to the national grid, the class arched in collective agony as the penetrating sound clawed its way up their spines and drilled into the base of their skulls. Turning back to the, now silent, class, Jayne calmly took his seat behind the desk placed at the front of the room.

"Now that I have your attention, let us begin with a few introductions. I believe I mentioned that my name is Mr Cobb. You may call me Sir or, during informal moments, Sir. On those rare occasions when you forget yourselves and call me something other than Sir, I can assure you that I have a very nice letter prepared to send home to your parents and, further, Mister Doom has assured me that the school will substantially contribute to the cost of your funeral. Are there any questions thus far?

Somewhere, on the other side of the 'verse, a pin was heard to drop.

"No? Excellent; I shall continue."

* * *

_**Cultural Digression: Education: **_

_Excerpt Taken from: "Lonely Planet's Guide to the 'Verse" _

**_Digression to the Digression: 'Lonely Planet':_**_ One of the few surviving cultural icons from Earth that Was, Lonely Planet guides had become something more than a travelguide as time had seen them transfigure into a accumulation of collected cultural knowledge, aphorism and trenchant social criticism – as well as a particularly good restaurant guide penned by someone writing under the sobriquet of 'Michelin'. The Alliance had tried to suppress the publications on numerous occasions only for it reappear more pointed and sarcastic than ever. In the end the Alliance hierarchy had given up its assault on the Guide as a lost cause when the last of a series of Operatives sent to 'speak' to the editorial board had ended up as a featured columnist on dealing with bureaucracy on Core Worlds._

The classical sensibilities of 'education' imply that information is to be passed on so that the next generation may learn from the mistakes of the former; unfortunately, education in the Core was based on the idea that 'if the young weren't actually told the truth and the substitute for the truth was more carefully managed than a political campaign, then mistakes they couldn't know about couldn't possibly be repeated. Of course, the Guide noted, quoting the philosopher Hegel: _"The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."_ Various editorial notations – cited to various apocryphal sources - also concluded that Alliance policy apparently had trouble learning from yesterday and that Hegel must have been taking the long view.

The Core Worlds were strong in their instruction of the so-called 'Hard Sciences' simply because it was hard to argue interpretation _vis-à-vis _the effects of Gravity (for example – unless of course the question relative to the effect of gravity was…'Why is the Reaver Ship landing here?' Of course, as Reavers didn't actually exist, there was nothing actually landing.)

Core-educated children also exhibited a tendency towards a relative interpretation of reality insofar as seeing didn't necessarily constitute believing unless they were told that they could actually see…(whatever it was they weren't previously seeing).

Education on the Rim tended to focus on a series of concepts popularised as the 'Maslow Doctrine', that stated: if you can't eat it, build with it or wear it then it isn't worth knowing about.

This, too, proved to be somewhat short-sighted – largely because the presence of things edible, constructible or, indeed, wearable on many worlds proved to be something of a moot point: it did, however, create an intrinsic suspicion of the alleged benefits of terrraforming (and, for that matter, cookbooks).

Rim-world children were generally inculcated with the belief that if it moves, shoot it, If it keeps moving shoot it some more and if it's still moving after that run like hell in the opposite direction – for some of the more regressed societies this inevitably created problems with landslides, tidal waves and Reaver invasion forces.

Obviously, these people had never heard of King Canute.

_**Cultural Digression to the Cultural Digression:** _

Alliance scholars inevitably wheeled out the story of King Canute - from the Earth-That-Was – in order to demonstrate the futility of attempting to stand against an overwhelmingly superior force. However, real scholars who used history as an object lesson and not a series of bedtime stories to frighten children inevitably brought the same story out to prove the exact opposite; that flattery and hubris inevitably got in the way of reality and that, in the ongoing battle between reality and bullshit, reality – especially in the cases of natural forces - always won: as a wise scholar noted: 'You can no more win a war than win an earthquake'.

* * *

Jayne regarded his students with satisfaction. They were quiet and relatively attentive – inasmuch as one retains the ability to concentrate when threatened with immediate death if you stepped out of line.

"Mr Doom advised me that your previous teacher left under somewhat difficult circumstances and that you have fallen behind in several subject areas, I have been employed to rectify that situation."

The large man's words carried more than a hint of threat and the class shuddered as one. Almost.

"Can you more closely define the concept of 'rectify'?"

"Would you care to rephrase that statement?" Jayne rumbled, unable to identify the querent insofar as his complete attention had not been focused on the class.

"What do you mean by 'rectify'?" came the reply, although the tone of the question indicated several unspoken adjectives were probably added to the interrogative.

"I understood the question," noted Jayne – demonstrating a degree of restraint probably thought beyond him by many, past (and now terminally incapacitated) acquaintances, "however, I was giving you the opportunity to amend the construction of your question insofar as it appeared deficient in its construction; specifically, its lack of an honorific. I believe I addressed this previously. Now, if we logically extend from this, it is possible to surmise that as you are unable to follow a basic instruction, which is potentially indicative of your holding some measure of defect, probably cognitive, potentially genetic, it is highly likely that any definition I provide will be foreign to your level of comprehension."

"I'm not thick and I'm not retarded…" atmosphere pooled in small pockets about the room and began to grow stale in the lengthening silence "…sir…" the courtesy clearly forced, "however, your use of the term 'rectify', in light of your previous comment to the extent that our funerals costs will be met, in part, by the school, leads me to believe that if you 'rectify' us we may need those funeral costs sooner than anticipated."

"I wouldn't worry too much," noted Jayne, "any remedial educative practises I intend to enforce are unlikely to have fatal consequences at least, that is, I am yet to shoot anyone because they are unable to grasp the concept that a sentence must have a verb in it, however much they may deserve it; that being said, the bilges on Firefly Class transport, where I live, always need a clean and I am pretty certain that I can persuade our mechanic to make use of some indentured labour. Anyway, those of you who end up cleaning Serenity can consider the job a useful career orientation considering that if you fail to learn your letters and numbers it is highly likely that such a job will be your inevitable fulltime profession on leaving this fine educational institution."

The class appeared fascinated by the interchange, fascinated, that is, in the same way that a small, harmless rodent is fascinated by the large angry cobra that has suddenly appeared in front of it.

* * *

**_Cultural Digression: Snakes_**

Snakes are common throughout the 'verse. Some philosophers have argued that the plenitude of snakes in the 'verse is a direct result of St Patrick's, from the Earth-that-was, order that all snakes leave Ireland; having nowhere else to go, the snakes went into space. Sceptical members of the scientific fraternity have frowned on such a hypothesis noting that no snakes have been found that have the ability to survive in a vacuum or possess a faster-than-light propulsion system.

* * *

Rising from his chair and circling the class slowly and – albeit unwittingly – menacingly, Jayne continued his commentary.

"Of course, there's nothing to be ashamed of, working in a low-grade, minimally-paid, unskilled employment, someone has to do the little jobs. Admittedly," and here the mercenary faked a sigh of regret "people who clean floors with toothbrushes don't tend to go on to glittering careers filled with money, fame and all the beautiful companions one can handle."

"Then how would you explain Merath of Abacus IV?" questioned the voice of resistance, "he was a cleaner."

"There is always an exception," Jayne noted, his eyes crinkling slightly in amusement; firstly, because he was paying attention this time and had identified his academic picador and secondly because, whilst the eponymous Merath was indeed famous you could hardly call his 'career' 'glittering'. "Although, I am not so sure I'd use Merath as an example, unless you consider mass-murder, child trafficking and drug running a glamorous and potentially long-term future employment proposition." Pausing, he dropped to his haunches behind his target, "and further," he continued in disgust, "Merath was an idiot, he didn't even recognise the origins of what I said to him before I shot him."

"You shot him?" came the choked – and disbelieving – response.

"I wasn't always a teacher," said Jayne quietly, before standing and returning to the front of the class.

"Moving forward from exhortations to attain a minimum of academic acceptability – of which perfection is simply the entry-level requirement – I should probably find out who you are; if only to know the correct name with which to adorn any letters of condolence as it would be remiss of me in the extreme to further traumatise a grieving parent by having to inform them that, in fact, their child is still alive."

Reaching around to the desk behind him, Jayne opened a folder – one of several arcane-looking documents provided to him by Doom – and retrieved the class list; a sprawling affair that appeared to have been arranged with all due consideration to rhyming scheme and none to alphabetization: (actually, it was ordered in terms of destructive capability, but Doom hadn't seen fit to advise Jayne of that fact and even if he had Jayne wouldn't have believed it as he called out the first name on the list).

"Morrigan Evans…"

"Yes sir," came the quiet, wispy response. Morrigan Evans was probably a shade under four foot tall and was probably no older than seven. With pale – almost white – hair and pale grey eyes the child looked like she'd escaped from a Reubens' painting – albeit she wasn't absurdly fat and she didn't have wings: Jayne had often wondered how the cherubs in Reubens' images were actually capable of flight but, he surmised, if bumblebees could do it then why not fat, flying babies. What struck Jayne as particularly incongruous was that this creature, an apparent poster child for the incarnation of innocence, was named for the Celtic incarnation of war and death-in-battle.

Gathering himself, Jayne moved, glanced at the page and wished he hadn't.

"Mephistopheles Smith?"

"Present, sir", came a basso rumble from the back of the class. Ebon-hued to an almost blue translucence and constructed – at least in terms of his rotunda-like circumference - like a golem on steroids the child resembled nothing more than a recently discovered reincarnation of an ancient Buddha, one who had been raised in a weight-training facility.

"How old are you boy?"

"Eleven, sir."

"…You should see his father, sir, he blocks out the sun."

"Thank you, Mister…"

"…Corvus, Uriel Corvus, sir...'

Jayne was already too resigned to react to the deliberate, albeit unconscious, provocation of a name that would give cultural historians and etymologists fits, however, surrendering to the inevitable, he did redirect the inevitable question that arose from the interjection, to its source.

"Just how large is your father, Mister Smith?"

"Seven foot three, four-hundred pounds", came the - (obviously) memorised and oft-recited - response.

"So you've got some growing to do then?"

Good-natured amusement was evident in the child's eyes, "Yes, sir. My mother says that constantly, although I am not sure if she's happy or worried about the prospect as she tells father that one oversized lump of a man is more than enough for her to deal with."

"You don't have any siblings?" asked Jayne.

"…They're all normal; not like the mountain-that-went-to-Mohammed over there…"

"…Thank you, Mister Corvus, now…" continued Jayne, raising his voice over the jeers and airborne detritus headed in Corvus' direction, "if you don't mind, I'll continue…"

"…Best of luck with that…Sir…" came a _sotto voce_ response and the class dissolved into poorly suppressed expressions of mirth.

Thus it continued. For the next hour – and never in Jayne's wildest nightmares would he have considered a list of names taking an hour to read: even if his colleagues on Serenity previous estimation of his intellectual abilities had been accurate – the teacher _pro tem_ waded through a list of names that read more like an encyclopaedia of myth, legend and cultural reference; obviously, there was something seriously wrong with Bellerophon's water supply, one that (apparently) affected parental good taste and judgement. Then again, Jayne acknowledged, it was possible that the parents of the children were following – in an overly slavish manner in his considered opinion – the local fashion, after all, giving your child a name with a degree of wider social and cultural cachet was not unsurprising when you lived on a planet named after a guy who flew around on a winged horse killing ferocious beasts of legend.

As if the names weren't enough of a challenge it quickly became clear that none of the children in his class were 'normal', normal, that is, in the sense that they acted like typical children. Certainly, they were boisterous and possessed of a certain childlike naivety that spoke of a lack of tempering at the hands of an indifferent world but behind the eyes of each and every one – even little Morrigan Evans - there was a sense of knowing and a touch of ageless wisdom that transcended mere physical age.

It made the large man distinctly and uncomfortably nervous for, to a child, they reminded him of River Tam.


	15. Like a Leaf on a Pteranodon

_Dear God. Six months. Oops. I guess the irony is that I have actually been writing this - on and off - for six months; but this is not the time and place for a self-pitying wail on the various roadblocks that have impeded my progress..._

_I really like some bits of this, I have to admit it was fun delving into a few narrative backwaters and creating some backstory._

_I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to John Wyndham, Diane Duane [my obligatory] apology to Lewis Carroll and pretty much anyone else I've pillaged in the attempt to make this readable._

_It's mostly readable._

_I'd also like to repeat my request for a literate, marginally-sane, beta I really need someone to keep kicking me along._

_Please read and review - even if only to tell me to hurry the fuck up :)_

* * *

_Every child is special." Boy, they said it over and over, as if to convince_

_themselves, "every child is special", and I kept saying, "__fuuuck__ you!" _

_Every child is __clearly__ not special – __**George Carlin**_

**_._**

_**King**__: Chiswick, take this to the Queen of Naples. __[hands him a lidded goblet]_

_**Chiswick**__: What is it, my lord? _

_**King**__: The King of Naples. _

_**Blackadder [S1 **__**– The Queen of Spain's beard]**_

**_._**

_Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected._

_**Robert Orben**_

* * *

Pre-Ariel, Jayne Cobb's idea of hell – or, at least, of a well constructed nightmare – would have been to be trapped in a room with River Tam. Despite his intelligence (and as is the case with most - intelligent or otherwise – people) he was suspicious and in some cases fearful of what was different and not able to be easily categorised. Latterly, and given the events surrounding the 'Miranda Incident' as it had become popularly known , Jayne had come to appreciate the uniqueness that was River Tam; admittedly, saving the lives of himself and the rest of the crew from a the ravening hordes of the great unwashed tended to cast one's 'eccentricities' in a more positive light.

A room full of River Tams was another thing entirely.

As precocious as a bag of kits and as slippery as a bucket of eels, Jayne's class was giving him fits and on those occasions when Jayne sought to escalate matters – for it was either escalation or shooting – old-man Doom's sole response was to smile in an avuncular fashion and pat Jayne, comfortingly, on the shoulder; Jayne was fairly certain the old man was taking the piss although he couldn't prove it.

Worse, it had only been a week.

This is not to suggest that the class was unruly for they were not. This is not to suggest that the class was disrespectful for Jayne's initial oration, referencing funerals and the like, had been taken under careful advisement by his charges. Furthermore, Jayne had only to raise his hands towards the blackboard with only the slightest intimation of implicit action and the class took on the characteristics of a mime with their hands removed.

At base, the problem with Jayne's class was a simple one, they wanted to know why. All the time. About everything. Unremittingly. It was torture. At one point he had commented that they were supposed to have progressed, developmentally, past this point when they had turned three whereupon Corvus, who was fast becoming Jayne's own, personal, Greek chorus, noted that some of the class were still on speaking terms with that nominal age, in particular, Morrigan Evans' younger sister Boadicea, who had just turned five.

Classical allusion was also to prove an unsuccessful haven from the children.

After being convincingly trounced by the bespectacled Euclid O'Halloran (almost nine) in discussing the relative merits of vector analysis in navigational plotting – a subject that had devolved from discussing the set assignment about 'Where I Live' – Jayne had muttered about how he would be prepared to give up his kingdom for a horse: of course the children wanted to know all about this – well the boys were predominantly interested in the kingdom and the girls in the horse (except Lucretia Byron who wanted to know about sweeping down upon your enemies like a wolf on the fold).

If Jayne had given matters a degree of further consideration he would have wished to trade his kingdom for a dinosaur for then Wash could have carried the argument on vector analysis in his place; however, he, Jayne, wasn't entirely sure how O'Halloran would accept 'leaves on the wind' being presented as either empirical evidence or a rational discourse on navigation; although the idea of Wash illustrating how a leaf navigated on the wind (with assistance from his Pteranodon) would have been worth the price of admission;. especially, as Jayne's money would have been on the pilot.

Certainly, it had made an interesting discussion at dinner that evening.

"You want me to do what?" Wash stated, managing to sound only mildly incredulous, due to (no doubt) the majority of his focus being on his wife who had fallen from her chair in the Amazonian equivalent of hysterical laughter.

"Teach..." Jayne reiterated.

"Teach what?...shut up, Zoe....," Wash was sorely tempted to boot his wife but thought better of the action, not out of love but out of a well-developed sense of self-preservation: his wife's more 'martial' instincts tended to override her sentimental side and the red-haired pilot considered that a knife through his foot to be a negative situational outcome "... teach what, Jayne"

The big man appeared somewhat embarrassed and looked in several places about the room that weren't Wash (or Zoe - who had managed to reseat herself; albeit somewhat unsteadily) before mumbling something which Wash interpreted as resembling 'vector analysis and navigation'."

"Just for clarification, Jayne, precisely how old are these children who've been given over to your pastoral," the pilot managed not to choke on the last word "care?"

"I believe the oldest is twelve, however, the vast majority appear to range between seven and ten, although some are younger still."

"You want me to explain vector analysis and navigation to a bunch of children?"

"Something like that. Why, is that a problem? I'll even let you use your dinosaurs," he offered by way of incentive.

"They're children..." replied Wash, his tone clearly implying that the concepts of advanced mathematical principles and children did not mix. Personally, Jayne tended to agree (at least on general principle) although his agreement was more analogous to a mix of maths and children being akin to giving a sloth valium in that the resulting admixture was likely to produce an expected result. However, such a conclusion only held true in the world of generalities or, in this specific instance, if the children in question were your usual incarnation of screaming, rug-chewing malcontents: in this instance, the children were craftier than a gang of bent camel-traders and sharper than a demonstration blade at a sword-sharpeners convention and, as such, the usual rules didn't apply.

"I think you'd be surprised, they're a pretty unusual bunch."

That the mercenary managed to keep his voice neutral was a testament to years of training: training based on the acknowledgement that a failure to control one's actions and, more especially, one's emotions usually resulted in fatal consequences. While it was true that constant exposure to dangerous situations left a person in a constant state of readiness it was equally true – unless the person in question was a true paranoid (a condition many long-term mercenaries approached....well those that survived to be called 'long term') – that continued exposure to a more 'relaxed' environment inevitably caused one's guard to drop.

Now, while it would be inaccurate to cast the day-to-day experiences of Serenity in the realm of relaxed – for whenever something resembling 'relaxed' appeared on the horizon, Mal could generally be relied upon to accept some hare-brained scheme on the south side of suicidal – it was, for Jayne, a lot more peaceful than the daily shootouts, ambushes and betrayals that marked his previous, pre-Serenity existence.

Except for the Reavers, of course, prior to Serentity Jaayne hadn't had much truck with Reavers, nor had he had any interest in doing so. Now, whilst interaction with the feral beings was not a 'daily' occurrence it had become a common-enough experience that Jayne felt comfortable – in his leisure time and when he was feeling suitably sarcastic - to begin creating a Reaver taxonomy based on the predominant archetypes he had observed while fighting for his continued existence.

Wash, of course, wasn't an idiot. Much like Jayne he hid his intellect behind an elaborate series of ruses, games and misdirection. Where Jayne snapped and snarled, Wash rolled his eyes melodramatically and pronounced their doom. Where Jayne betrayed the grace and charm of a really angry carnivorous plant, Wash acted like an intellectually-compromised garden vegetable. Wash wasn't an intellectual; book learning bored him. He understood the concepts and the maths behind piloting because he had to (the guild had steadfastly refused to give him a license until he passed their exams, despite his off-hand crushing of the Alliance's flight display team that had been demonstrating at the flight school at the time he graduated - the Alliance had offered Wash an instructor's position on the spot much to the guild head's chagrin). Wash's was the type of intelligence that was three parts situational awareness combined with and a kinaesthetic sense that translated itself into a remarkably intuitive grasp of spatial relations; he was a born pilot and an even better table tennis player.

It was something about the ball as it moved through space at the whim of the spin, and the vagaries of intent imparted to it by the other player, that attracted Wash, not that he would have phrased it in those terms. When asked, Wash simply said that 'it moved like a leaf on the wind' before consigning yet another opponent to oblivion. Even River, for all her preternatural abilities couldn't beat Wash. Often, after another object lesson in table-tennis from the master, she could be heard to complain that 'it wasn't fair playing someone who knew where the ball was going to be and where it was going to go before it got there'.

But what was really special about Wash and his abilities was that he could take the most abstract piloting concept imaginable and render it in such a fashion that even Mal could understand it – at least while it was being explained. On several occasions, Jayne had seen the pilot explain his latest insane manoeuvre in terms that exemplified the purest of logic and the cleanest mathematical proofs available – Jayne knew that Wash and his dinosaurs would not only make a 'leaf on the wind' sound like the most rational explanation of vector mathematics ever but that the numbers would back him up.

Euclid O'Halloran was going down.

"Seriously, Jayne, why do you want me to come and talk to your kids...and I can't believe I just said that...and Zoe, do shut up."

The Amazonian woman had regained a small measure of composure but was still, clearly in the grip of a mild hysteria – not the hysteria that has you running through the streets screaming about how 'they're coming' but the hysteria that has you gasping for breath because your lungs have sought migrant status in foreign climes.

"I'm sorry, husband. I was just overtaken with an image of you standing in front of the class with one of your dinosaurs explaining how it wasn't really dinosaur but a leaf that was really a ship and behind you was Jayne threatening to shoot any of the pupils who asked a question."

"I don't know, Zoe," rumbled Jayne, "seems like a mighty reasonable interpretation of how events might go, certainly I'm in favour of the shooting aspect of your image."

"I thought Mal covered that with you right at the beginning of this exercise; you aren't allowed to shoot the children, no matter how much they might deserve it."

Jayne sighed, although it was clear that his resignation at being unable to respond in a suitably 'projectile-based' fashion was feigned.

"Mister Doom said much the same thing, although he did sympathise and intimated that if I really felt like it I could threaten to shoot them and that I could even take one of my smaller weapons to class to reinforce the threat. However, he said that I would have to surrender all of the ammunition to him, personally, beforehand, in case the temptation became too overwhelming and I accidentally removed someone's kneecaps. He, very kindly I might add, did offer to let me use his private garden as a potential punishment."

Wash looked somewhat bemused by this statement.

"I'm going to assume that doesn't mean that punishment entails weeding the petunia beds or fertilising the agapanthus. Sure, elbows deep in manure doesn't sound like the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon but it would hardly count as punishment. Let's face it, Bellerophon is not the most picturesque, hospitable or even, if you consider the desert areas, habitable of environments; enforced gardening hardly seems like the sort of thing you would do to punish an errant child. Moreover,..."

"Agapanthus?...moreover?..., husband are you not well?" Zoe queried, concerned. "Just because Jayne has started speaking like an ambulatory dictionary and thesaurus doesn't mean you have to go down the same path."

Wash grinned, "Don't you worry none, lamby-toes, I'm still me; I'm just getting into the swing of this education-y thing. If I am going to speak to this abbreviated bunch of nemeses that have gravitated towards our fearsome colleague then I have to practise my teacheriness; haven't had to do that since flight school when it was my job to terrify the new entrants."

Zoe rolled her eyes, although she did remember, from the early days of Serenity, when they had visited Wash's old flight school and she had seen that he still held several records, some student related:

Most Students Rendered Unconscious During a Test Flight.

Most Students Swearing Never to Leave the Ground Again. Ever.

And some from his own student days:

Voted most likely to ignore the laws of physics

However, it was the technical awards for aptitude – and the fact that Wash topped pretty much every honours category in the history of the school – that spoke to his true abilities; just as it was the notation in his graduating year-book that noted that Wash also held the school record for the most demerits gathered for breaking the rules in order to do something he wasn't supposed to do (or was considered to be in contravention of the laws of physics) that married the image of the brilliant pilot with the idiosyncratic figure that was her husband.

Wash's voice broke into her reminiscence.

"Anyway, Jayne, gardening as punishment, somehow the idea of twenty-years hard-gardening doesn't quite have the same ring to it as isolation and rock-breaking – even accepting that these are kids and not convicted felons."

"There's not that much of a difference, when you get down to it," Jayne noted, "although it is possible that felons are better behaved and have greater impulse control.

Anyway," he continued "old-man Doom's garden is no tea party; despite its distressing lack of inverted flamingos, obese monomaniacal royalty and white members of the _leporidae_ family. He was showing me around the other day, after school had finished for the afternoon; I think it was his way of getting to know me a bit better and reassuring himself that he hadn't made a horrific error in acceding to Li-Han's request. So," he continued, "the garden is a collection of monstrous cacti, overly-attentive carnivorous plants and, just for variety, he has several semi-intelligent, ambulatory nightmares, called Triffids, that walk around whipping everything that moves unless they have the proper identification..." Jayne paused to consider his previous statement. "I guess you'd call it identification...sort of."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Wash noted, "but how do you introduce yourself to a plant?"

The larger man chuckled, "I asked Doom the same question, although my motivation was along the lines of not wanting to look like an idiot. I mean, it's not like I can hold my hand up and wish the plant long life and prosperity."

The married couple looked at Jayne blankly.

After a semi-interminable silence, Jayne shrugged internally, and resumed his narrative. "Doom told me that his garden has its origins in the mad ideas of a man named Caligari. Apparently, Caligari decided to play god and created a multitude of plants that, whilst having their origins in reality, were influenced by flights of fantasy and imagination. He was, by-and-large, successful, thus the giant cactuses and carnivourous plants, however, one of his experiments eventually tracked him down and ate him..."

"...And that would be the thing with the whip?"

"Yes; for all that Calligari was brilliant, enclosing himself in an environment with no back door was remarkably stupid. Fortunately, Caligari's place was securely enough enclosed that the beasties weren't able to escape; although Doom did note that the lack of opposable thumbs and minimal leg-type appendages also contributed to the lack of viable escape options. Anyway, with the plants effectively confined, various people – with extensive lists of letters after their names – were given the chance to examine Caligari's work more closely. Eventually it was found that certain frequencies had very specific effects on the plant's central nervous systems..."

"...Plants don't have a central nervous system..."

"...These do. I told you, Caligari was playing god; even now no-one is completely sure what he did to create this particular..er...thing."

"So why didn't they simply destroy them?" asked Zoe, ever the pragmatist, "they destroy animals that kill humans, I see even less reason to spare a group of angry vegetables."

Jayne shrugged, "Personally, I agree, but according to Doom, while Caligari may have been nuts his brilliance was such that the plants were considered too fascinating to destroy and the bulk of them were packed off to some research facility: the plants that were left were still busily germinating at the time and were missed in the initial sweep."

"So why weren't they picked up later?" asked Wash.

"For a start, Doom said that by the time the school had taken over the grounds, 'Caligari's gardens had not only assumed local legend status but the stories of the 'killer plants' was widely held to be an urban legend and, Doom also mentioned that the original cull or, if you prefer, capture and relocation, had been forgotten; the headmaster only uncovered it when he accessed the records surrounding the property as part of the purchase agreement."

"So," noted Zoe, "some time had passed between the initial incident and the arrival of the school on the grounds."

"According to Doom, about a hundred years."

"I know that that's not, in the grand scheme of things, awfully long time for a plant to take to germinate and develop, but you'd think someone would have noticed something."

Jayne nodded "True and that's just the half of it; even now they – being the school custodians – don't have a complete grasp of the plants' life-cycle; although they have enough of an understanding to be damn careful around them. Fortunately, even after a hundred years many of the remaining plants havn't fully matured otherwise, as Doom noted, he and I would have been holding our conversation with the aid of a Ouija board and a scrabble set."

"How so?"

"The whips hold a lethal poison - but only in the fully mature specimens; Doom got lucky and only had the crap knocked out of him, the local real estate agent at the time wasn't quite so fortunate.

The couple winced.

Apparently, the body was never recovered as it fell into a giant Venus Flytrap and was rapidly digested. Apparently the Triffid was furious as it started to viciously whip the flytrap, which, simply, if you'll excuse the term, ignored it and continued digesting its dinner."

Jayne paused momentarily, "Where was I? That's right. Frequencies. The original investigation discovered that certain frequencies have specific effects on the plant's behaviour, one frequency in particular apparently causes the plant such pain that it avoids the area from which that particular frequency is emanating. When Doom reviewed the data that had been left behind that was one of the things he uncovered, which was pretty important if he ever wanted to wander around the grounds. He simply extended the idea for when the kids are assigned; that is, everyone is given a sonic emitter to wear and the Triffids keep their distance although, apparently, they're not very happy about it for when there's kids in the garden the Triffids are usually found beating the tar out of some innocent cactus.

Zoe added "I guess the carnivorous plants and the cacti are less of a problem?"

Jayne nodded, "That's right; Doom told me that they occasionally have to haul one of the more adventurous kids out of an oversized pitcher plant or unhook them from one of the cacti, but generally there's not too many problems as they actually monitor the kids very closely when they're in the garden; well that and the fact that the more dangerous of the carnivorous plants are clearly sign-posted and fenced off. The whole point of the punishment is to teach the kids about acting responsibly, not providing the plants with an additional source of nutrients."

Wash laughed, "Gives the idea of 'the other meat' a whole new meaning."

* * *

**Class: The Following Week.**

The pair of them stood at the head of the class, one focused and authoritative; the other nervously fondling a pteranodon.

The class stared back with something that could be said to be approaching nervous anticipation; much like when a antelope encounters a lion and an accountant at a watering hole – while the lion is a known quantity the antelope isn't quite sure what to make of the accountant.

Thus it was with Jayne and Wash, the children knew all about Jayne – in the large, fearsome predator sense, the smaller man was an unknown quantity, although, his association with their teacher intimated to them that he couldn't be assumed to be completely innocuous.

Jayne had to admit – privately, to himself and not that he would let it show as he knew that children smelt fear – that the attentive silence coming from the children was somewhat unnerving; certainly, he wasn't foolish enough to think that he had subdued them to the point where they had suddenly become paragons of virtue: a few more object lessons were needed before that particular goal was attained.

Best get the formalities out the way first.

"Good morning."

A muttered susurration of 'good mornings' rolled across the room in response.

"Today, I have brought a guest," (not a sacrifice, he added, _sotto voce_). "This is my colleague, Mister Washburne; Mister Washburne is a pilot, he will be talking to you about flight – you will extend Mister Washburne all due courtesy while he is here; failure to do so will result in an extended visit to Headmaster Doom's gardens – without the benefit of the sonic emitters, although the headmaster has convinced me that you be allowed a running start. "

Before Wash could even open his mouth a voice rang out from the back of the room.

"Sir. Why does he have a dinosaur sir?

"Thank you, Mister Corvus (who else?). Please see me after class so that we can discuss your unfortunate propensity to speak when not directed to do so." Jayne was also tempted to add, breathing, walking and simply existing as other sins attributable to the young man but thought that Doom would frown on someone being sent to 'The Garden' simply for being the unfortunate result of forty-six chromosomes having a party.

Jayne turned his head slightly and nodded at Wash who, once again, prepared to address the class and who was, once again, interrupted.

"Sir. What's a dinosaur, sir?"

This time it was Penthesilea O'Grady, who was – improbably - even smaller than Morrigan Evans. Jayne didn't have the heart to discipline O'Grady as it would have been like drop-kicking a kitten down a mine-shaft. Of course, Jayne's failure to act cause the inestimable Corvus to go up and flames and he began to declaim – like a demogogue – from atop his desk about issues like natural justice and inalienable rights: concepts which were not readily found in The Mercenary's Handbook™.

"Mister Corvus," noted Jayne in a remarkably controlled voice, "if you are not sitting, quietly – I might add – in your chair within the next five seconds any further conversations we have will be conducted through the good auspices of a medium and her best ouija board. Clear?"

"Yes sir," came the grudging response.

Wash was trying hard not to laugh. At least with his mouth anyways. His eyes were dancing. Lots. Jayne was also fairly certain that the dinosaur was laughing as well – although he couldn't prove it.

"Alright, let's try this again. This is Mister Washburne. Mister Washburne is a pilot. Mr Washburne will be talking about flying. No one is to interrupt Mister Washburne. If Mister Washburne gives you leave to ask questions, you will address him as Sir. Failure to comply with these instructions will not only result in the guilty parties spending an extended period of time in 'The Garden' but will also result in said parties undertaking a series of special assignments as designated by myself. Are there any questions?" The last was asked in an intimidating basso rumble.

"Yes sir."

Jayne sighed, "Yes, Miss O'Grady, what is it?"

"What's a Ouija board, Sir?"


	16. What is this I don't see before me?

_Apparently, if you're religiously inclined, Christmas is a time of miracles; and thus, while – perhaps – not quite up there with the virgin birth, we have another chapter._

_Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the wonderful Morgan, she who hates the word 'that' and who was tasked with beta-ing the mess that is my writing. Such were the travails to which I subjected her she was rendered desperately ill and only through the promises of agreeing to space my ellipses did she consent to rise from her Tupperware cave and carrying on beta-ing. _

_As always, I'd like to apologise to significant sections of the English Literary canon, however, I'd like to take this additional opportunity to apologise to Heisenberg, Schrödinger and pretty much every physics, biology and chemistry teacher on the face of the planet._

_BTW: I wasn't kidding when I said getting this done was a miracle – since September I have been working fulltime 6 days a week, studying, training for a powerlifting comp end of November and renovating the house – finally, I get a break …well, for three weeks, then my wife has a baby … *sigh*_

_With regards to the story, things are starting to get a little more complicated and, just to make myself miserable, I've added a few more threads and backstories into things …why?...why? …[Answer: I am an idiot]. _

_Please read and review… _

_

* * *

  
_

_Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and_

_they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so,  
_

_ just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon._

**_-- H.L. Mencken_**

_Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge._

**_-- Paul Gauguin_**

_Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. _

_For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. _

_There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines._

**_-- R. Buckminster Fuller_**

**_

* * *

  
_**

"Okay, what is flight?"

If ever there was a loaded question – well, at least one delivered by a red-haired pilot, mused Jayne – that was it.

For their part, the class suspected it was probably a trap: not because of the person asking the question, nor the fact that he held a moulded pterodactyl in his hand, but simply because their guest presenter had been brought to the class by their new teacher who, in the mere period of a week, had shown himself to be more contrary than a sack of cats and twistier and turnier than a ourobouros on acid. For that reason, any question presented to the class by the teacher, or by an agent of the teacher, was examined with the attention, due care (and paranoia), one extended to an angry snake.

Wash shrugged to himself, albeit with a twinkle of amusement, as he watched the silent battle of wills.

"I'll assume, from the overwhelming silence, and the fact you're all looking at Mister Cobb and not myself, you believe that there is some sort of hidden agenda at work; I assure you that such is not the case. If Mister Cobb wanted to make your lives miserable he is quite capable of doing so without my help – although" and Wash's expression assumed a mien of caricatured malevolent mischievousness – all that was missing was a waxed moustache to twirl, "all he had to do was ask; after all, what are friends for?"

That got the class' attention.

"I'll ask again, what is flight, or if you want to dumb it down a bit," he noted, dangling the insult like a baited worm before them, "what is flight? I'll assume," he continued, "because Mister Cobb has assured me, you are capable of independent and – ostensibly – rational modes of thought and that you are all aware of what flight actually is and therefore don't believe that birds are masters of complicated illusion and that various types of atmospheric - and space - craft aren't held up by really long pieces of sting."

Jayne smirked, for the latter question – or, at least, its phrasing – was a common tactic used by the pilot when he was attempting to inform, usually, Mal or Simon that they were being bigger idiots than usual. Typically, the flow of Wash's monologues became increasingly surreal as he conjured less and less likely outcomes to the (ostensible) employment scenarios planned by their captain, or the doctor's intimations of intellectual superiority; it was with fond remembrance that Jayne recalled Wash informing Mal that a particular job they were planning to undertake; involving the transportation of stolen porcelain, if Jayne accurately recalled, would result in the inevitable destruction of the universe.

Admittedly, that particular effort had been a _bravura_ recitation worthy of a Royal Command Performance (accepting the lack of the British Royal Family), and had prompted River to acknowledge its delivery with a profoundly respectful curtsey. Mal's response, judging by the interesting hue his expression had assumed, - which appeared neither natural or healthy – wasn't particularly amused; everyone else had collapsed in various stages of humour-induced respiratory failure.

The class continued.

"So, from the lack of response, I can assume that not only do none of you know what flight is, or how it is achieved, but that birds, and various airborne craft, don't actually fly." Wash smirked, Jayne had warned him that the class would be, initially, reticent to answer so he had prepared in advance. "Actually, it's a little known fact, but birds, well those classes of birds that we consider to have the appearance of flight, actually come with inbuilt holographic transmitters and when you see a bird fly past what you actually seeing is a projection of such: the bird is probably hiding under a bush. Birds don't actually have wings ... or feathers. Birds don't actually look like birds, what you're actually seeing when you see a bird is the physical manifestation of the bird's subconscious.

"Birds actually look like snakes, but without the wings. There have been snakes with wings, although the empirical evidence for such is limited insofar as Quetzalcoatl hasn't been seen outside of Meso-America recently."

The class was starting to look slightly dazed at this point and some of the younger members were starting to look at the crazy, red-haired man with expressions that were starting to resemble genuine fear; fortunately, Wash was good at reading an audience and thus, with a surreptitious wink at his imposing colleague, started again.

"So, accepting there is no such thing as flight, what is flight?"

"But you just said there was no such thing..." came an outraged howl from the back of the room.

"So?"

"What do you mean 'so'? Either something is or it isn't."

Jayne smiled in satisfaction. Sure, a little slower than expected, but Euclid O'Halloran was well on the way to implosion. The mercenary-cum-teacher had been watching as the child got increasingly outraged at each exponentially absurd comment that emerged from Wash's mouth and it was only his fear – despite assurances to the contrary – of death-by-teacher that had stayed his tongue. Admittedly, Jayne had, other than the fact he'd invited Wash to the class as a set-up, several advantages over O'Halloran. The first was that no matter how insane the pilot sounded, which was a fair proportion of the time, Jayne admitted to himself, he knew Wash always – well usually …maybe … had a point, which would provide some measure of educative _coup de grace_. Secondly, and this was largely a developmental observation, he could allow O'Halloran a somewhat greater degree of latitude than was nominally – or even normally, for that matter - granted to the average person who got in - using the vernacular – Jayne's face; being nine years old, genius or not, granted you the mercenary's version of a 'Get out of Jail Free' card.

"Not necessarily. Sometimes it might be ... or could be ... or, in very special cases, it will be at some point that may, or may not, be predetermined. Tell me Mr O'Halloran, is Schrödinger's cat alive or dead? When you figure out if it is alive or dead ... then you can tell me how fast it is moving."

"How did you know who I am?"

Wash smiled his approximation of an evil smirk. "Your reputation precedes you."

* * *

Even before he had opened the door he sensed the presence in his office; it was something – well, more correctly, someone – he hadn't sensed (or seen) in a very long time: since Earth-That-Was, in fact.

Five-hundred-odd years is a long time between drinks. Literally.

Turning his key in the lock - as he assumed, like times past, his guest would have secured the door behind them for no other reason than the lingering acknowledgement of past paranoia. Although, to be fair, the last time he had seen his guest 'they' were indeed out to get him.

Doom eased himself into the room and noted, with a wry smile, his guest had already discovered his stash (fast-diminishing) of Cuban cigars, and judging by the disturbed decanter on the sideboard, his finest whiskey. "Hello Derial, it's been a long time."

Derial Book raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement as he took the time to blow one final, perfect, smoke ring. "Hello Elijah, how have you been?"

"I get by. Yourself?"

"I have my moments."

Both men were guilty of a level of self-deprecation which would have been obnoxious in someone who exuded a lesser presence. As it was, the dismissive attitude simply appeared to be little more than the continuation of an oft-interrupted conversation.

"As I well remember, Derial," continued Doom. "May I ask what you're doing here? If I remember correctly, our last parting wasn't on, what you might call, 'the best of terms'."

Book snorted in amusement, "It was more a case of us being on different sides of the same argument – it was more a case of bad luck and unfortunate coincidence that placed my judicial role in direct opposition to your legal one; I take it you're no longer running that law firm?"

"As much I can assume that you're no longer a judge... no ..." he considered, "this time I see you're playing the part of a priest. How... unexpected."

Allowing himself a small smile, Book contradicted his companion. "No, Elijah, this time there is no playing; I am," the word subtly stressed – with a touch of gentle reproach, "a priest."

Doom allowed himself a snort of disbelief. "How, after all we have seen, after all we have done, can you believe in a god?" Then, recovering himself somewhat, he shrugged, "No matter, it is not my place to offer censure – even if I do consider you bereft of sense or, if I thought you'd actually listen. Now, old friend, tell me, how have you been?"

"As I said, I have my moments, and at this moment, I am in town. In fact, one of my colleagues is working for you; Jayne Cobb."

"An interesting man. I didn't realise you were part of that crew. Admittedly, Li-Han never went into details as to who were members of the crew. He simply noted any potential security issues had been vetted, not," he noted, "that they would have found anything on you".

Book smiled. "The Alliance records retain a faint trace, although it's more a file-code noting that I – and any companions – are to be treated with extreme 'courtesy'. It's one of the reasons why that Operative left me alone when he was busily making object lessons of all Reynolds' associates."

Doom rolled his eyes dismissively. "The ostensible 'Miranda Incident' if I recall. Alliance politics have never held much interest so as long as they leave me alone. I imagine, like yourself, they have a file somewhere which says something along the lines of 'approach only if you've given up on living'." Doom smiled a crocodilian smile. "Actually, I imagine some sort of commentary is attached to pretty much all our files, at least those of us who remain." His eyes assumed a distant cast, "and now there are so few. Anyway back to the estimable Mister Cobb, how long have you known him?"

"If his recent behaviour is anything to go by, 'estimable' is the last word I'd use with respect to him," muttered Book. "That young man has turned out to be full of surprises."

Doom smiled, in the manner of a shark at an orthodontics convention. "Excellent. Tell me more over," he noted wryly, "another glass of whiskey."

* * *

Things were not going well - at least not for those aged twelve and under. Admittedly, Jayne was having fun.

Currently, Wash was holding forth on the fact the planets were, in-fact, square (cuboidal, actually) and comprised individual components of an interlocking, quadrilateral-based universe.

The howls of outrage from (some of) the students – especially those named O'Halloran – were deafening. Some students, however belatedly, which gave Jayne some small hope a microcosm of genuine intelligence had leaked in behind their genius, realised they were witnessing a wind-up of massive proportions and settled in to watch the show.

From his voluminous back pocket Wash produced a small, cube-shaped device which appeared to be made up of smaller cube-shaped devices which rotated through both horizontal and vertical planes about a central axis, and was explaining to his (largely) bemused audience that what he held was a scaled-down model of universal motion.

"It's a Rubik's cube" screeched O'Halloran.

"Yes, that's right, it was designed as a teaching device for spatial and quantum mechanical engineers."

"It was a toy from Earth-that-Was!!! It had nothing to do with movement, space or anything, it's just a toy!!"

"So it has nothing to with the laws of planetary and universal motion?" Wash sounded amazed.

"No."

"So, it doesn't rotate about a centralised axis ..."

"Well …yes …but …"

"… and it doesn't exist and operate in three dimensions …"

"… but …but…the universe isn't a cube …"

"So?" Wash asked curiously.

"So! What do you mean 'SO'?"

"What shape is the universe?"

"… Er …" O'Halloran was starting to look trapped. "I don't think it has a defined, identified shape."

"But you would accept that it exists in three dimensions?"

"… Ignoring temporal constructs and hyper-physical reality, yes … tentatively …"

"So, how would you construct a concept which exists in three dimensions, involving multi-planar rotation, yet doesn't have a defined shaped, in such a way that the basic idea is able to be understood by pretty much anyone?"

"…!!!"

"Exactly, Mister O'Halloran. First law of flight, don't over-complicate things that are essentially very simple …"

Jayne was trying very hard not to laugh.

Surreptitiously slipping his colleague a wink, Wash continued. "Part of the problem, Mister O'Halloran – and this applies to the rest of you – is that you're too smart for your own good or," he added in a considering tone, "you're smart enough to know stuff but not smart enough to know what to do with said stuff."

"I thought smart was supposed to be a good thing," argued the occupant of the desk next to O'Halloran, Aristotle Thalidomide.

"Well, it is; but the problem with smart is that it is so impressed with being smart that it overcomplicates things simply to prove that it is, indeed, smart – thereafter proving to all and sundry that it is really rather stupid. For example, if I wanted to get to where Miss Ericord is seated what would I do?"

After a brief silence, Wash was deluged with suggestions that, if strung together – with an appropriate soundtrack – would have comfortably formed the basis for a Gilbert and Sullivan libretto. Wash leaned against the desk at the head of the room with a meditative, almost beatific, expression on his face – albeit a meditation that was occasionally interrupted by suggestions so megalomaniacal as to render his assumed calm asunder – most notably Lucretia Byron's suggestion of a litter borne by the muscular, oiled bodies of her conquered enemies.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Someone queried.

"I was being polite. I was going to say 'wrong', except someone told me that, at this stage in your development, you're all too mentally fragile to be told that you could possibly be wrong and that if I did so it would probably set your development back years. Is that right, Jayne?"

"I wouldn't know; this lot are wrong so often that they should be used to being developmentally retarded by now. In some cases," and here he cast a gimlet eye on his nemesis, Corvus, "I have doubts that it is actually possible for them to regress any further."

No howl of outrage was heard. No voice was raised in protest – not even Corvus – although Jayne was prepared to put the silence down to ongoing, plotted revenge instead of acquired wisdom.

Wash continued.

"You are all wrong because you assumed what I wanted instead of listening to what I actually said. I didn't ask how I would get to Miss Ericord's desk; I asked what I would do if I wanted to get there. What I would do is move. As I said to Mister O'Halloran; don't overcomplicate things, especially things that are very simple. To be fair, you have to ensure that you don't oversimplify events to a level of redundancy as you ignore cause-and-effect at your peril. Further, simple doesn't mean easy. Further still, 'simple' is contingent on context and an understanding of meaning."

"So how does anyone ever understand what anyone else wants?" This time, O'Halloran sounded genuinely interested.

Wash sighed "Most of the time people don't. Sure, you can make assumptions based on shared culture and history and what you know about the person and what you happen to be doing at a specific time – and we do this unconsciously and instinctively – but generally, I would say that if you have to think about your answer to a question then it's probably better to seek clarification it could," and here, Wash stared somewhat pointedly in Jayne's direction, "save your life."

Pausing, Wash surveyed the class one last time, "Now, knowing what you do know about, amongst other things, me, let's try again: what is flight?"

"Not crashing," chorused the class.

"Very good," replied Wash.

* * *

The betrayal was something that still haunted him – although he wasn't certain if he had been betrayed or fooled into betraying himself); something that caused him to question his very being, although, as he constantly rationalised (a newfound skill he had become acquainted with), when your very understanding of who and what you are is ripped out from under you a measure of questioning is warranted.

He didn't want to examine whether he had been his own person (ever), instead of a rigorously trained automaton – if indeed he was a person instead of a collection of urges sublimated for the 'greater good' – because he was afraid of discovering a large neon sign with the word 'idiot' prominently displayed in lurid ten-foot high letters with a flashing arrow eternally signifying his current location.

Was he even real?

Not in the flesh and blood sense – he was having an existential crisis not a crisis of confidence relating to whether he was really there (or not). As the phrase went: _cogito ergo sum: _ I think, therefore I am…_cogito…_ I think; although he had pretty substantive amounts of evidence that eh didn't, in fact, think – maybe he would simply fade away like the gods of failed religions do once their worshippers stop believing..

Of course, any five year old could have told him that thought was overrated. (Of course any five year old would have seen through the tissue of lies, half-truths he'd followed as doggedly as a blind man in the land of the one-eyed king.)

Since Miranda, he had wandered, much in the manner of Wordsworth's cloud, rootless, although (a man of his resources - however inherently corrupt: the resources, that is, not the man) never approaching vagabondage. For a time he had travelled the Rim, and it was there, evermore than the magnificent grotesquery that was Miranda, which convinced him that his previous loyalties were little more than a hollow shibboleth to a false god.

Idolatry was a sin, he reminded himself.

Idolatry at the feet of a golden calf even more so.

Yet, he did not find himself seeking revenge, revenge served no purpose other than as a empty sacrifice to his hollow cow (he had smiled wryly to himself at the time of that thought, he was noticing a theme) and, further, it went against his training. He hated to admit it but the continual psychological indoctrination that was intrinsic to the process of creating an operative had rendered the destructive mindset void. There was also a degree of realism involved, against whom would he seek vengeance? The Alliance? To attack the Alliance would be akin to attacking smoke. Certainly, there were solid, concrete people to whom he could make his dissatisfaction [permanently] known but that would serve no purpose: where one fell another arose, limitless in their number and each bred from the same fecund cloth of ideology as the other.

Inevitably, such as anything that happens within the psyche of a damaged man is inevitable, he determined that if he could not tear down, then he could build and where once he served a master of the rod he determined that his service would heal the beast of burden.

Penance was not a sin.

Expiation of sin was mete.

* * *

"So, what have we learnt today?" It was, after all, a classroom, and one must – at least – make a propitiatory genuflection in the direction of the educative spirit.

"That if we don't do what you tell us – or, at least, listen", came the grudging addendum, "you'll bring one of your friends to class and they'll make us look like idiots."

"Very good, Mister O'Halloran, although I should note that I don't need one of my friends to make you look like idiots you do that perfectly well by yourselves, however, there's an important distinction between being an idiot and knowing that you're an idiot."

"Are you an idiot, sir?"

"Absolutely; the important distinction is that I have had years of, not only, being an idiot but knowing that I am an idiot and adjusting accordingly; you do not." Admittedly, adjusting accordingly was a euphemism for shooting whoever happened to get in his way but he wasn't going to tell the children that: no matter how intellectually advanced they were. 'Adjusting accordingly' was an acknowledged occupational hazard when one was a mercenary, those that didn't usually ended up as the centrepiece of a particularly elaborate worm farm.

The idea of worm farms dredged a memory from the back of his mind, of an Alliance terraforming experiment gone horribly wrong. In this instance, the initial geological and biodiversity survey hadn't been thorough enough and had failed to pick up the existence of the extant terrestrial life form on, what was considered to be, the barren rock they had targeted. The terraforming process agreed mightily with endemic life form – a particularly aggressive, albeit not especially large – type of worm. The Alliance didn't become aware of what they'd created until the survey teams they'd sent in to confirm the success of the terraforming process disappeared. Further investigation revealed the hitherto undiscovered worm, which was still pathologically aggressive, was the cause of the problem. It didn't, in reality, take much in the way of detective capability to discover the now one-hundred-foot long worms and it was a short step to deduce that they were the cause of the problem when a swarm of the creatures attempted to systematically dismantle the party's landing craft and, although the attempt was unsuccessful, the craft resembled nothing less than a regurgitated hairball before the worms (apparently) gave up in disgust.

The planet was now on the Alliance's interdicted list.

* * *

Later that evening, back on Serenity, Jayne was relaxing in the galley with a – reasonable facsimile of – whiskey; it had been a good day. He knew better than to express such sentiments out loud in case the karma-fairy decided to punish him for his impertinence but he allowed himself a small moue of satisfaction.

"When do I get to meet your class?"

River. So much for relaxation. Damn karma-fairies.

"Never, if I can help it."

"You let Wash's pterodactyl go."

"Wash's pterodactyl can be relied upon to behave itself and not act in a manner that would unduly alarm the children," that and, the fact that, it's moulded, inanimate plastic, he added mentally, and not likely to kill any of the children with its brain.

"I can be good."

"The issue is not whether you can be good, River, it's whether you can be sane."

"That's unnecessarily judgemental, if you're prepared to let the Shepherd's hair speak to your class then I should be allowed to too."

"I haven't even asked Book to visit," Jayne replied mildly. "I haven't even thought about asking the Shepherd to visit – even, by your stratospheric standards of lunacy, River, accusing me of something I haven't even thought about doing is pretty impressive: although," he chuckled, deprecatingly, "I thank you for the idea."

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity…and Simon is treating me like a bone-china idiot, if he wasn't my brother I'd feed him through one of Serenity's engines."

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."

"No fair trumping my Parker with Churchill…," complained the girl "anyway, I'd clean up afterwards."

Jayne shrugged, before adding, sententiously "Clean up all you want, but I doubt that turning her beloved into garden mulch would inspire Kaylee to forgive you with any degree of haste."

"She'd forgive me … if I gave her enough strawberries."

"And, if I may be so bold as to ask, precisely how many strawberries is your brother worth?"

"Ohhhhhhh, a philosophical question!" River appeared delighted "I like philosophy."

* * *

"We have found them." It was a statement. No more. No less. One could not determine from the tone whether the speaker was happy, sad or even cared about the subject in question.

The speaker's face was as bland and expressionless as his voice.

Only the hands betrayed intention: hands of blue.


	17. Daisy Chains and False Trails

_Well, I gotta say, it didn't take me six months this time … but Xtrist I'm busy. We [being mrs iscariot and I] have a nine week old baby in the house [hi Malachi *wave*] and consequently with mrs iscariot doing mother-y things I am working six days a week, trying to do some study, trying to paint/ rennovate the house and also trying to fit my powerlifting training in. Occasionally, I get to write … usually at work … on my breaks …._

_Chapter notes: Bits of this chapter mark a return to the more ornate, grammar-dense language of the past, I missed playing havoc with the language, hopefully those of you reading will persevere and read through the craziness._

_Tied in a few bits of exposition._

_Tied in a few bits of the weirdly fantastic, it makes sense in the overarching context of the fic but I hope people don't get pissed with the 'oogly-boogly' inferences at the end._

_Thoughts are with my beta who's been sicker than a dog – so all mistakes can be blamed on her 'cos she can't fight back._

_Please review – I know you want to. Well, I know I want you to but I am not going to lower myself to begging. Thanks._

* * *

[_doubting the great Descartes] was a reaction I learned from my father:_

_Have no respect __whatsoever__ for authority; forget who said it and instead look _

_What he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, "Is it reasonable?_

_**Richard Feynman**_

_**.  
**_

_When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt._

_** Henry J. Kaiser**_

_**.  
**_

_The question of whether a computer can think is no more_

_Interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim_

_** Edsger W. Dijkstra**_

_**.  
**_

* * *

Steph Aureus was not happy. In fact, Steph Aureus was, to coin a phrase, absolutely septic – that being said, the cause of her considerable ire would never face her wrath. Furious Steph may have been, suicidal she was not.

It was not that there was any proof that Mister Doom had done away with a[ny] student[s] (former) that refused one of his requests; it was that there wasn't and thus, when Jeremiah Doom's dulcet tones curled around the corners of her conscience in the manner of a predatory butler stalking a gin-and-tonic the safest, agreed, course of action was to do as he asked and swear about it in private, later. In such cases, private was an area (usually) defined as no-less-than ten kilometres distant from Doom (as epicentre), but it could have been, for all who considered such matters knew, ten kilometres outside of planetary orbit … or the solar system: rumour had it that the Reavers tended to congregate where they did because it met the basic requirement of being (at least) ten (non-specific) units away-from-Doom.

Anyway, when Mister Doom approached [cornered like a rat] her and asked [mellifluously manipulated] if she would be willing to escort a group of children to the old firefly-class freight that had set down on the city limits there was little that she could do but accede.

So here she was, five children in tow, each child prone to giving one nightmares if one was: [a] acquainted with them – and she was - and [b] inclined to thinking about the little things that were possible if these children got loose: war, famine, pestilence and death to name but a few of their minor hobbies when off the leash. She shuddered inwardly when she remembered the wreckage of the city's Museum of Culture and Heritage after a particularly … effervescent … school trip.

Worse, Doom hadn't even tried to rationalise the event, calmly responding to questions from the local – and, indeed, Alliance-wide – media to the effect that the purpose of education was to provide a stimulating learning environment and that the museum had succeeded splendidly in facilitating that function; further, the school and its board of directors were so pleased with the salutary effect that the museum had had on the students' disposition, and overall attitude, towards learning that they were planning another visit. This pronouncement had led to the immediate resignation of the museum's director and his subsequent joining of an ancient, and highly reclusive, religious sect, located so far out of the fringe of known space that it made Bellerophon seem like a teeming Core metropolis, which, to be fair, it was, when compared with a planet that comprised the sum total of fifty-odd monks and a local fauna notorious for its anti-social (and anti-aircraft) tendencies - the monks only got on to the planet because they'd struck a deal with the fauna, although precisely what that deal was, was a closely guarded secret.

To be fair, the children hadn't so much wrecked the museum as they had challenged its central ethos and the mission statement surrounding the purpose and - ongoing – function of its exhibits; in two-year –olds such behaviour is termed the 'why' phase and is intermittently charming; with a group ranging in ages from five years of age to twelve it could, generously be called precocity: less charitably, a position taken by most of the media, citizens and (especially) museum staff , the appropriate nomenclature was 'taking the piss'.

With her, in order of no precedence whatsoever; were: Uriel Corvus – or, as Steph tended to think of him, Goebbels-lite (she was studying the history of The Earth that Was at the local university) ; Rex Tyranosor – his father was in demolitions and wasn't too particular about where he left his spare equipment, which his demon-spawn childe used to devastating effect when left unsupervised; Lucretia Byron – who, in Steph's completely objective opinion, had all the makings of a potential serial killer, albeit, her love of small animals did allay some measure of concern; Rolf Courtakingcaractacus, who was just passing by and finally, little Morrigan Evans, who 'wanted to see Sir'; the older girl shuddered, she hated to think what 'Sir' had done to warrant attention from Morrigan Evans.

The trek through the city had been relatively free of incident other than one shopkeeper who saw fit to wave a very large knife in Corvus' direction, for what reason Steph wasn't entirely sure, although she momentarily considered holding the little varmint down while the shopkeeper expressed his displeasure with the child in an up-close-and-serrated fashion. However, Corvus showed a remarkable turn of speed for one so young and he was out of range before his keeper was able to give in to her baser instincts; further, his expeditious _exeunt_ allowed Steph a measure of time to imagine just how many yards of viscera Mr Doom would extract from her abdominal cavity for her failure to follow his instructions explicitly – which didn't (apparently) involve getting the children eviscerated.

Not that Mr Doom ever expressed himself in such terms.

Ever.

He simply retained a series of facial expressions that intimated, … doom. Yours. Not necessarily painfully, in the sense of eponymous lakes of fire and barbed devils testing the elasticity of your testicles with corkscrews, but rather the sort of total obliteration that went with the consignment of souls to the abyss or an ongoing tax audit – fortunately, Steph wasn't in paid employment and therefore only had to worry about death and not taxes; she also wondered if Mr. Doom practised his expressions in the mirror before he went to bed.

Truth-be-told, Steph was actually rather fond of Mr. Doom, he had taught history in her last year of school and it was his teaching that had inspired her to study it to a greater degree at university. Doom was a compelling teacher, he had a way of relating information that made it seem as if he was actually personally involved in the events he described; in some ways the level of detail in his lectures was almost eerie, however, as Steph wasn't particularly superstitious (or suspicious) by nature she simply wrote it off as an extremely gifted teacher with a passion for their subject.

She wasn't so sure she could say the same thing about Mr. Cobb. Clearly, having left the school she hadn't encountered him as a teacher, however, her little brother, still attended the school and he passed on the latest gossip, which described how Mr. Cobb had threatened to crucify half the class on his first day and had, in fact, sent some of the children out to collect the requisite quantities of timber from the grounds; and now, at Mister Doom's request, she was taking a group of these children to see Cobb; worse still, they seemed eager to see him.

Steph quietly muttered to herself about illegal use of mind altering substances and the immorality of using brain-washing techniques on children.

Finally, after what seemed an extended period of pedestrian drudgery – although Steph had been spared the expected complaints about 'being there yet' through the simple expedient of routinely and somewhat flamboyantly in her opinion, displaying the knife she had had the foresight to purchase from the shopkeeper (whom had provided Corvus with an extremely graphic description of his probable genetic heritage), she was somewhat fatigued – the group arrived at the outskirts of the settlement and could see in the near distance, the outline of the Firefly-class freighter that was their destination.

Approaching the craft, Steph saw that two people were stationed outside, although stationed was not, perhaps, the correct nomenclature insofar as neither appeared to be on guard or, if the scuttlebutt and rumour about Mr Cobb were to be believed, _en guarde_ either.

Of the two, the figure that captured her immediate attention was an older man, dressed somewhat conservatively, who was reclining in some sort of folding chair. His attention appeared to be wholly taken with the book he was reading, although this proved not to be the case when, in beautifully rounded vowels he addressed her group.

"May I assist you with something?"

"We're looking for Mister Cobb."

"Ahh …" came the initial start of a response, only to be pre-empted by the Greek-chorus-in-tow

"He's our teacher," chirruped Corvus,

"Where're the horses?" queried Byron

"Where are the weapons?" this obviously from Tyranosor.

"Why am I here?" queried Courtakingcaractacus, who was starting to regret ever passing by.

"Where's Mr. Cobb?" came the quiet addendum from Evans, who shyly peeked out from behind Steph's hip.

Somewhat helplessly, Steph rolled her eyes in the direction of the man, clearly stating that she had no control over this semi-contained horde and that in the event of anything disastrous, libellous or otherwise calamitous occurring she could not, from any legal, fiscal or moral perspective, be held responsible. More definitively, in her mind, Steph couldn't even be held irresponsible for the actions of this group. Certainly, she could gag Corvus and possibly keep a foot on the throat of Tyranosor (her legs were longer than his short little arms so she felt a measure of comfort in pinioning him successfully), but that was only two of five and she could guarantee that Byron would be off fomenting revolution and Courtakingcaractacus would just be off – to God alone knew where, but it was a safe bet that any future direction taken by the boy could be summed up as 'not here'.

Then there was little Morrigan Evans. Steph shuddered.

Calmly returning Steph's gaze, the old man smiled somewhat wryly and turned his head in the direction of his companion and called out, "River, could you come here a moment?"

"The hair will stay bound?"

"Yes, River, the hair will stay bound, now, would you come here."

As she ambled over to the man, Steph saw that the person named River was a girl not much older than herself, although the lithe, but wary, grace with which she moved indicated that age was more relative than indicative.

"Shepherd?" the now arrived River inquired.

"Is Jayne aboard? These people are looking for him."

"I think so, certainly he didn't go into the city this morning; maybe the rabbit stole his alarm clock."

The man, whom Steph now knew was called Shepherd, although she was unsure if that was a title or simply the man's name, raised a hand in her direction clearly indicating that it was better not to question. Yet, before she could acknowledge the silent byplay, the girl, River, had espied Morrigan Evans who,much like a remora, had stayed firmly in her larger, older escort's wake.

Where River's prior approach spoke of a measure of worldly experience in its graceful wariness hersture was had become one of angles and her gaze was both hard and, strangely to Steph, desolate. River knelt before the small blond child, taking her hand and staring long into her pale eyes, "Hello … sister … are you well?"

* * *

In another part of town Mal had settled himself in Li-Han's office – at the direction of the man's aide – and waited for his current employer to arrive. It was a credit to the former Brown Coat's professionalism that he was able to hide his disquiet as well as he was but there was something about this current job that, the longer they stayed, gnawed at his bones.

In a soldier, feeling that gnawing, that slow icy crawl of death's fingers as they tantalisingly worked their way down your spine had saved Mal, and those who had served with him, on more than one occasion. He remembered the disaster that was Serenity Valley and how he had, despite the fire in his belly and the rage in his heart, withdrawn at the final command and seeing what had happened to those who stayed and fought … and died:

To the last man:

To the last woman:

Heroes all:

Dead heroes:

Oblivious to the accolades and posthumous tributes; for what did the dead care about the words of the living?

Especially when he was still alive.

_Guilt._

Mal deliberately shook himself out of the painful reminiscence, but that effort did nothing to dispel the sense of foreboding that had triggered it, something was coming, something wicked and his crew and his ship were squarely in its sights; what Mal had yet to determine was if the gods of chance had decided to, once again, play Russian roulette with the lives of his _de facto _family or if he was being deliberately set up as a pawn in a wider game of intrigue. If there was anything Mal hated more than the idea of overpowered-beings-on-clouds with too little time on their hands to do anything other than play with their thunderbolts, it was earth-bound, and wholly mortal, entities entertaining delusions of adequacy in their quest for temporal deification.

He wasn't too fond of being a pawn either – although Jayne had noted, the last time Mal had wound himself into a peroration on the subject that Mal was more akin to a knight than a pawn if only because he was as stubborn as a mule - rather than being driven by noble intent.

Li-Han chose that moment to enter his office, albeit his entrance bespoke a man on the way to his own execution rather than a man entering the nexus of his sphere of influence: Malcolm Reynolds often had that effect on people. Despite the apparent weight of the world on his shoulders, and the signs of fatigue evident in the deeply etched lines about his eyes, Li-Han's greeting was friendly enough (admittedly, the captain generally considered any greeting that wasn't at the point of a gun, friendly).

"Captain Reynolds, what can I do for you?"

"I'm simply touching base," [why the hell are we still here and what are we actually doing?]

"There are no problems, I trust?" came the ubiquitous reply. [I don't believe you]

"Not that I am aware of," [other than my crew getting arthritis of the backside from sitting around doing nothing], "however, I was wondering how much longer the contract will be running; I do, after all, have a ship to run and a crew to provide work for. Not, of course, to imply that we are unhappy for the well-paid rest."

Li-Han smiled humourlessly, "I am sure Mister Cobb would be fascinated to hear about his well-paid rest."

Reynolds shrugged, "Jayne is perfectly capable of looking after himself …"

"Unfortunately, I am not paying you a significant amount of money for Mister Cobb to look after himself."

Aha, thought the captain … finally. "So what is Jayne looking after then; your words clearly indicate that he is looking after something."

"You don't need to know."

"I have a responsibility to my crew, and however much I might like, at times, to deny that Jayne Cobb is a member of my crew, he is and thus my responsibility." [If you enjoy having your-hand-that-feeds periodically removed at the shoulder]

"Irrelevant, you relationship with Cobb, or your crew in general, has no bearing on what you are being paid for." Li-Han's eyes softened briefly, he wasn't, by nature, a callous man and he did understand the man's, standing before him, loyalty to his crew, "Perhaps I should add that the stipulation as to the specifics of what Cobb is doing remaining confidential, is for his protection as much as yours – jumping at shadows, real or imagined, will not help with your assignment."

"But how can he do, whatever he is supposed to be doing if he doesn't know what it is he is doing?"

Li-Han shrugged, "His presence suffices."

"That would be a first," Mal muttered.

* * *

"They're what?" came the outraged growl from the depths of Jayne Cobb's berth on Serenity, in response to the Shpeherd's politely worded request that he come outside as he had 'guests'. It had, admittedly, taken a while for Book to find the right adjective for the small – literally – party that had assembled at the entrance to the hold. 'Boarders' wasn't strictly accurate and 'visitors' ran the descriptive gamut from 'Alliance customs check' to 'Reavers' to 'Naked-teenage-girls in-an-icebox stowaways', thus, by dint of exclusion and discretion, the generic 'guests' was the best he could come up with. This, of course, doesn't include the problem the Shepherd had – philosophically, that is; not materially – with Jayne's guests being of the abbreviated (height) human variety and not of the ladies-of-the nocturnal-aspect-of the-diurnal-rotation-who-were-possessed-of-questionable-virtue.

Not, he hastened to mentally add, that he had anything against prostitutes, after all, his deity was known to purposely frequent the company of such (voluntarily and on purpose, no less) and therefore it was alright… and it wasn't as it he had been a Shepherd his entire life and therefore was well aware of various…"Dammit Jayne, you've got guests!"

"Lead on McDuff," came the quiet response at his shoulder, which nearly sent the startled man-of-God into another bout of, wholly uncharacteristic', internal monologuing.

Entering the hold, from the direction of the crew quarters, it took Jayne - and the Shepherd – a moment to locate the children as their eyes slowly adjusted to the bright sunlight streaming from outside, casting the smaller figures as, initially, nothing more than shadowy outlines. As the outlines slowly morphed into recognisable forms, Jayne's dismay rapidly became apparent.

"It is my day off. Is it not enough that I am tormented by your pernicious presences on an ongoing – and seemingly eternal – basis? Is it not enough that you dog my every step, much in the manner that that mangy cur - of unknown parentage - which follows me to and from my place of torment. Is it too much to ask that you leave me be on my weekend? … "

"Nice to see you too, Sir," remarked Corvus, mildly.

Jayne dipped his head minutely in acknowledgement, "…And, pray, what in the name of all that's holy, did I do to the imaginary man in the clouds that he must curse my presence with you, Mister Corvus? As always, it is a dubious pleasure to see Miss Byron and a moderately tolerable position to find oneself confronted by Messers Tyranosor and Courtakingcaractacus, as I assume they are just passing by. Even the presence of my elfin nemesis, Miss Evans, whom I see has already succumbed to the unwholesome influence of Miss Tam, is not enough to cause me undue discomfort, but you, Mister Corvus, what did I do to deserve your presence?"

"Just lucky, I guess … Sir."

If the older man was aggravated by the remark he didn't show it, in fact, if one were to look closely there was a certain glint in his eye that bespoke a certain level of amusement – although he would have denied such to any accuser.

"I'm not entirely sure how one would equate your presence with 'luck' Mister Corvus, unless one were referring to bad luck in which case your presence would indicate that a person had been cursed by the gods, however, you appear to bear no resemblance to the eponymous Furies, give your lack of feminine aspect …"

"… That would be my mother, Sir; that is, she is of feminine aspect."

"I wouldn't bet on that, Sir, you haven't seen his mother."

"Shut up Tyranosor, at least my mother isn't a walking advertisement for sexual health checks."

"Jayne? Just how old are these children?" asked Book, who having drifted away from the mercenary to watch the interactions, now found himself quietly sidling back in Jayne's direction during the exchange.

"Their age; or the degree to which they're aging me, as the latter is an exponential expression of the former."

"It's just that they seem so much older than … than …"

"… Their height?"

"I was going to say, apparent age, but 'height' conveys the basic concept appropriately."

Jayne shrugged; he wasn't going to disagree with the Shepherd. In the brief time he had been at the school - in his 'undercover' capacity - the striking feature that he had noticed, other than Doom's preternatural ability to appear out of the walls, or the predatory garden, or that damn dog that followed him everywhere wasn't that his class were loud, noisy and obnoxious – he had nieces and nephews, that was expected – or that they retained a vocabulary that appeared to be culled from 'The Really Big Book of Really Big Words', which they understood and used correctly; it was that the class (to a pint-sized blonde child) appeared to retain a degree and grasp of conceptual development and implementation that was staggering. Worse still, and Jayne had received the odd hint from his observations – good mercenaries are good observers or dead mercenaries – was that he believed that he was only dipping his toes in the shallows of what was a very deep and dangerous pool.

"I think their age is largely irrelevant; there's something about them, not just these five, but the whole class, that is tugging at the edge of my mind; almost like a personified _déjà vu._ I just can't place it though. You weren't there when we visited Mister Universe, but one thing he said that has always stuck with me was that you 'can't shut down the signal' and … these … children … seem to be variations on a theme … on a signal, I just don't know from whence the signal originates, or even, what it is.

* * *

**Jeremiah Doom's Study:**

Pouring himself a drink, a strong drink at that, Doom, leaned back in his arm chair and gazed moodily at the amber liquid in his glass; the presence of Book, as he now called himself, was unexpected; not necessarily problematic, but certainly something to be considered, for while their relationship, like their relationship with the others, wasn't necessarily adversarial, common cause wasn't something that was writ large in their mutual histories.

Reaching underneath his desk, Doom activated the mechanism on a secret partition, which silently slid aside to reveal an, leather-bound journal. Gently, the old man lifted the cover and began to [re]read the preface and the reacquaint himself with the ghosts of the past.

**-- **

_Originally, there were thirteen of us. _

_We were what you might call 'gifted' or 'special', although at the time of our childhood none of us understood the concept as such; certainly the very banal normality of our births didn't give reason to think such – although, like all children, we were the centre of our own universe. _

_I think the first hint that things were not quite what they seemed was the lack of dying. The apparent lack of aging should also have intimated that something wasn't quite right, but as life expectancies in those times were not – as we consider it now - long, death normally intervened before people actually looked their age._

_Civilisations rose and fell, as they do, and – inevitably – as the world shrank, we began to encounter each other. It was nothing dramatic, simply a recognition of like._

_Sometimes we even got on. _

_More often than not indifference reined; although on some level it was pleasant to realise that you weren't completely alone; I guess it was like a family, individual, yet inextricably linked._

_Each had their own particular gifts, although we all shared certain characteristics, 'powers of the mind' if you will, although that wheels out a set of rather tiresome, and inevitably warped, clichés._

_At no time did one of us ever have precedence over the others and by our very nature we shunned the spotlight although sometimes our actions drew us a degree of unwanted attention, but then, difference always draws attention, normally from people who want it expunged from their simple little minds._

_The first, and last time, I saw all my brethren together was, as I write many hundreds of years after the events, on the Earth-that was. Maybe the gathering was fate, or simply coincidence but, be that as it may those of us who were more attuned knew that, as the poet Dylan was to write many years later, the times were changing. _

_More of us, our kind, were coming._

_I had always enjoyed being a teacher was pleased at the thought of instructing and guiding these newcomers._

_Others less so._

_We argued and, inevitably, we splintered. _

_I left in anger. _

_Sometimes I even feel regret for the past. Sometimes not._

_Yet one thing remained unchanged then as now I will continue to guide and protect the others of my kind. _


	18. Story Time

_For some reason I decided to continue this – after the almost total apathy the last chapter received I decided to devote time to more important projects: I suppose you can call an 8-month old baby a more important project – well that and emergency baby-proofing of the house._

_I've also been encouraged by a few people to try my hand at writing a real book…_

_Anyway, I believe I mentioned previously, that, because I am so busy, continuation of this story was largely dependent on the degree of feedback I received – so much for that definitive statement. [wry smile]_

_I am quite fond of this chapter. _

_I have – as is common practice of late – beta-d this in a cursory fashion: if you find a mistake it is your fault._

_Note: '( )' indicates an internal monologue: '[ ]' indicates a 'telepathic' discussion._

_Irrespective of any editorial grumpiness I am grateful for anyone who reads/ reviews this chapter. _

_

* * *

_

_You're a good example of why some animals eat their young._

_- Jim Samuels to a heckler_

_.  
_

_Stult's Report:_

_Our problems are mostly behind us. What we _

_have to do now is fight the solutions._

_.  
_

_It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose._

_- Darrin Weinberg_

_.  
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_

* * *

_

One of the obligations - albeit Jayne had termed it a penance – of teaching children was story-time. Admittedly, the older students in the class [ostensibly] tolerated the experience on the grounds that it kept the whining of their younger peers under some measure of control; in reality, they greatly anticipated their daily amble through the fresh fields and pastures of the fictional universe. On occasion, Corvus was heard to describe story-time as 'the psychiatric ramblings of Mister Cobb's unconscious mind', a series of occasions that was terminated when said description was intercepted by Mister Cobb and Corvus was designated as the story-teller for the following week.

Jayne's stories ranged from a recitation of the classics that had survived the flight from the Earth-that-was: Fear and Loathing Over A Cuckoo's Nest; Where the Wild Things Eat Green Eggs and Ham and Swiss Family Manson to modern children's literature that had emerged out of the rapidly evolving society that had emerged from the debris of the former civilisation such as: Planet Go Bye-Bye; Friendly Mister Blue Hands and The Reaver Under My Bed. Sometimes, the children asked Jayne to tell them about his life before he became a teacher; invariably, these conversations were short and to the point.

"Mister Cobb, tell us about when …"

"No"

"… But …"

"No!"

The class had, at one point, resorted to wheeling out Morrigan Evans in order to forcefully manoeuvre Jayne into telling them about his past. Giving the child a startled look, Jayne had retreated behind his desk and cancelled story time for the rest of the week. It wasn't that he was frightened of the child, at least not in the physical sense. In the physical sense the child's resemblance to a small blonde Chihuahua was unmistakable and, like all creatures of that ilk, was ripe for immediate implementation as a discus if displaying behaviour which could be interpreted as some form of provocation – not that Jayne would ever treat a child in such a fashion, there were after all, some things that even a low-down hardened mercenary (ex … sort-of) wouldn't do. Mentally, however, Morrigan Evans reminded him far too much of River Tam – a feeling heightened by Tam designating the child 'sister' when Evans, and her children's crusade, had visited Serenity – and Tam-like, objects of distaff orientation, were to be treated with the due care and attention one lavished upon a ticking crocodile.

Currently, lessons for the week were following their usual progression, that is, teach the designated subject for half an hour then allow an additional hour and a half to argue about the stupidity of the material, how it wasn't applicable in (or to) the real world – which always caused Jayne to inwardly smirk insofar as these kids wouldn't recognise the real world if it chased them down an alley and beat them about the ears with a battered cod – and that the people who had designed the material in question were probably the direct genetic descendants of a Palaeolithic cavemen and his pet mammoth.

The use of the Neolithic nomenclature had arisen out of the previous week's social studies class on human social development and Jayne's indication that, on the whole, the class was a de-evolved bunch of savages with no more wit than block of basalt; of course this had started an intra-class dispute on just who, amongst the foreshortened group of peers, was the least evolved. Jayne had to step in when Corvus (who else) had implied that O'Halloran wouldn't have discovered fire if he'd been set alight and O'Halloran had responded by attempting to introduce Corvus to the business end of the flint arrowhead he had made in the practical skills section of the class.

Today's lesson, immediately preceding story time, was about power distribution and mediation structures amongst social-elites and socially disenfranchised groupings, albeit it was framed, somewhat less obliquely for the class as: 'Bullying is Bad' - or it would have been if it had been the little kids (_i.e._ Jayne's class) that had come out on the wrong side of things. As it was, the class was hastily re-titled 'The Appropriate Uses of Superior Intelligence' or, as it assumed apocryphal status through latter generations of students, 'Uses for Electricity that are not Outlawed Under Pretty Much Every Known Human Rights Statute in the Alliance'.

Mister Doom – donning his very best I-am-the-Angel-of-Death face - had visited the class to deliver the lesson in person with a very pointed commentary on the contemporary cost of ongoing counselling for trauma patients; admittedly, the later was instigated by – as usual – Corvus and his less than tactful comment that 'everybody hurts'.

Jayne was fortunately seated behind Mister Doom when the comment was made for it was all he could do to contain his amusement.

He was decidedly less amused when Doom re-entered his classroom that afternoon with an unwanted guest in tow; River Tam.

"Mister Cobb, we have a visitor." _(Infestation is the correct term) _

"So I see; good afternoon Miss Tam

"Miss Tam has asked if she might visit with your class. She has expressed, to me, an interest in pursuing a career in education that I thought appropriate to encourage and, as she is acquainted with you, I thought it in the interest of smooth accommodation of split purposes if I placed her with you." _(She has, at various times, expressed an interest in being a tree and, on other occasions, an invisible purple-striped feline … humour her, yes, encourage … are you insane? Oh yes: why me?) _

"Yes Sir, how positively delightful." Jayne mentally counted to ten … million …. "Will Miss Tam be taking an active part in proceedings or while she sit and quietly observe? _(You can damn well read my mind now you little nightmare …Sit Down and Shut Up!) [/Pleading] –(Look, my mind is on it's knees)._

"Well Miss Tam," inquired Doom, "what will it be?"

Jayne regarded the pair attentively. _(Dear God, do you hate me that much?) _

"I think I would like to help Mister Cobb, it will be fun." _[Stop blubbering, Jayne, it won't be too bad]. _River smiled beatifically at her colleague. _[However do you cope with the echoing silence in here?] _

"Very well then, I shall leave you in Mister Cobb's capable hands." Mister Cobb's capable hands were currently making abbreviated strangling motions, something, if the sly smile on his face was any guide, Doom was well aware of.

Doom left – with a back full of metaphorical daggers that would, on any other occasion, have indicated that something distinctly un-amusing had happened to him on the way to the forum.

* * *

Rising from behind his desk, Jayne briefly surveyed the class before turning his attention to their guest.

"Welcome, Miss Tam," then gesturing with his hand he indicated the children. "This is my class. I would introduce to each member of the class individually, but that would not only take up valuable time, but necessitate your remembering a large amount of redundant information."

"Who are you calling redundant …Sir?"

Jayne smiled faintly, "There are a few notable exceptions to this classification and the less said about them the better. You do, of course know Miss Evans, and while I am unsure if you met Mister Corvus on the children's visit, it is highly likely that you heard him."

"Hey…"

Jayne blithely continued, "I do not believe Courtakingcaractacus has passed by today, however, both Tyranosor and Byron are present. Incidentally," he segued adroitly, "Miss Byron, it has come to my attention that, once again, you have been – and I quote – 'riding over the barbarian hordes in your war chariot'. Might I remind you that, not only, are the school bicycles not war chariots, but that they are not to be used to run down members of the other classes; who, I am, again, reliably informed, object to being called barbarians. Furthermore, the kitchen staff have asked me to express in the strongest possible terms that the theft of cutlery from the dining hall is not acceptable and Mister Doom has, in relation to your 'war chariot' asked that you do not affix said cutlery to said chariot in a fashion that could be interpreted as an attempt to scythe down your enemies; is this clear."

"Yessir," came the blithe reply.

"You don't have the slightest intention to obeying this request, do you, Miss Byron?" asked Cobb, in a moment of unusual candour.

"I do, Sir; to the letter."

"That's what I thought," noted Jayne, wryly. "therefore, I can only ask that in your observance of the letter of the law that you also pay some small mind to its spirit, if you fail to do so we, and by 'we' I mean Mister Doom and myself, may be forced to implement a more 'creative' series of disciplinary actions; is that clear, Miss Byron?"

"Crystal, sir."

Jayne took a moment to smile beatifically at the girl before continuing his introduction of River. "Now, class, for those of you not blessed with the joy of previous acquaintance, may I introduce Miss River Tam; Miss Tam is a colleague from my previous employment."

"Is that the same previous employment that brought us Mr Washburne?" queried "O'Halloran, warily.

"Are you worried, Mister O'Halloran, that you might, once again, be put firmly in your place?"

"No sir, I am more concerned that the various universal constants I cling to may be further undermined."

"You wouldn't do that to him would you Miss Tam?"

"That depends; I thought Wash had disabused him of any preconceptions surrounding the interactional properties of leaves and wind." River directed her gaze towards the increasingly frazzled student, "Never forget, Mister O'Halloran; whilst constants are usually considered constant for a reason that doesn't necessitate that the things around them are constant: or logical: or, in fact, bear any relation the current incarnation of the physical universe at this point in time or at any other point in time."

Jayne looked somewhat bemused, "You get that, Mister O'Halloran?"

"Yes; although I am not sure why she used that many words to say that context changes everything, but I'll accept her basic premise at face value – even if I think she's wrong."

River glared at the boy, muttering under her breath that she would kill him with her mind, although she subsided somewhat under Jayne's glare, remembering that, as she was a guest, it might be considered impolite to butcher Jayne's charges needlessly.

"What do you mean, kill him with your mind."

Hurriedly, Jayne interceded; Corvus could be like a buzzard with a corpse if left unattended.

"Merely a figure of speech, Corvus, I'm sure Miss Tam has no intention of killing Mister O'Halloran."

_[__Wouldn't you like to think so, Jayne]_

_[You'd need to get in line, River; I imagine his parents would be devastated if you imploded their child's mind before they had the chance to do it themselves, albeit in a more mundane fashion]_

If his increasingly harried expression was anything to go by, Jayne was rapidly losing patience with the situation; certainly, he hadn't asked for River's appearance, in fact, after a zombie apocalypse, the manifestation of the distaff Tam in his classroom was the last thing he wanted. However, as any good mercenary would tell you, adaptability is everything up-to-and-including changing sides in the middle of a 'negotiation'; thus, Jayne adapted.

"Well, as Miss Tam is here, and we were about to start story time, I think it mete, that Miss Tam, as our guest, is the person who gets to tell the story." Smirking inwardly, Jayne was pleased that he was [not only] managing to get out of having to tell the story himself, but he was [also] dropping River in the middle of things [to wit: a class of whom she had already threatened one member with deadly force] AND he was traumatising his class of abbreviated nightmares into [potential] silence for the rest of the afternoon.

… Blessed silence...

_[Jayne, I'm …]_

_[…Gonna kill me with your mind… yeah yeah, I know…]_

_[…No. I'm scared, I don't like your class, they're all staring at me with their minds …]_

_[…Too bad …in fact, cry me a …]_

_[…Don't say it …]_

_[…River . Anyhow, you invited yourself into my classroom; you can suck it up and deal with the consequences…]_

River, rolling her eyes in resignation, moved to the front of the classroom, and positioned herself against Jayne's desk in such a way that the larger man was forced to move if he wanted to observe both his guest and the wider class – he felt a bit like an anthropologist watching two dangerous predators as they felt each other out before deciding on the most appropriate course of action; it was somewhat ironic that in this situation the two predators were both more than familiar with being prey.

It had become a truism that the shape of the galaxy under the Alliance was one of predator and prey albeit a dichotomy determined more by politics than brute force. Money was a far more effective bludgeon than any weapon, no matter how powerful: you can't, after all, starve a planet with a gun (well, not technically, that is); you can, however, undermine their means of recompense for productive labour to the extent whereby survival – beyond mere subsistence – becomes almost impossible. In the harsh light of reality if you can't sell your products you can't buy other products that can improve your quality of life. This was especially true on the rim planets where the benefits of technology, which could prove to be the difference between feast or famine, often failed to filter through without suitable 'encouragement'.

"Well then, let's get started," she paused, looking at Jayne curiously, "Does one still start a story in the traditional manner?"

The sometime mercenary nodded his assent, after all traditions were to be maintained.

"Very well. In the beginning…"

Jayne scowled.

"Wrong tradition?"

"Get on with it."

"It was a dark time for the rebellion…"

Jayne's scowl progressed from merely forbidding to actively volcanic. River allowed herself a wry smile and continued: the children watched, enthralled – this was better than a direct holo-feed from the Core.

"Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a land far far away there was an evil Empire who thought they should have all the people under their control even if it meant that the people were to be turned into mindless zombies. In some cases the people were turned into mindless, very angry zombies and there wasn't a man with a chainsaw around to make them behave.

"Not only was the Empire evil, but it was also mean to young girls and it took them away from their close-minded, rank-obsessed parents and trained them to be creatures made of neither sugar, spice nor anything nice until their brains went squish.

"One day, one of these sweet children happened to randomly (and completely innocently) pick a very big, very nasty secret out of one of the nasty empire's evil henchman's brain and it made her brain go into emergency shutdown.

"At this point, the sweet child's brother, who was neither big, strong nor heroic but was possessed of a conscience and a cartload of good intentions, whisked her away to a place far from the evil Empire; it also bears mentioning that the brother wasn't too smart either as this far away place bore a startling resemblance to a portable refrigerator.

"The sweet child and her brother ran, hither and thither, for they knew the evil Empire was coming after them, led by their agents who were devoted solely-and-completely to the Empire and a small manufacturer of blue latex gloves.

"Eventually, they found a haven with a man with tight trousers who hated the evil Empire – and their retail clothing outlets. However, the man's tight trousers seemed to exude powerful magic for the sweet child and her semi-competent brother were able to escape and live happily ever after on an out of the way world that exported sand to the rest of the known 'verse. The end"

"I don't think I've ever heard that story told quite like that before, Miss Tam," noted Jayne. Well, children, did we enjoy Miss Tam's story?"

The children sat mutely at their desks.

The sometime mercenary shrugged "I don't think they've ever had a Dadaist story before." Just as he was about to move on, a lone voice from the back of the class spoke up.

"I have a question."

Peering into the far recesses of the room, Jayne was able to identify that it was one of the quieter members of his class that spoke, Ophelia Savonarola. "Yes, Miss Savonarola?"

"Can Miss Tam explain how it is that the protagonist of her story appears to encompass both an archetypal depiction of innocence and a metaphor for righteous action and justice without providing any justification through the construction of the narrative for such a juxtaposition. Further, in failing to establish such juxtaposition through the course of her narrative, Miss Tam also fails to provide an alternate proposition which would, in some measure, explain the motivations of the lead protagonist - at least insofar as providing a basis for defining action. I also take issue with the presentation of the brother as a semi-competent construct, if he was so incompetent, how was it that HE was the one who got the protagonist out?"

"Anything else, Miss Savonarola?"

"No Sir. At least nothing insofar as I wish to emphasize my contention that the narrative is untenable and illogical and that the characterisations are ill-considered and – I hesitate to state this as I don't have a full understanding of the background archetypes involved – self-serving."

Jayne smiled beatifically, "Well, Miss Tam?"

"Is she normally like this?" Murmured River, _sotto voce._

"No, normally, Miss Savonarola is the soul of _politesse_ and restraint: I guess she ***really*** didn't like your story." Jayne paused, considering, "and no killing her with your mind, you're not the one who would have to explain to her parents that she was murdered for presenting a reasoned, logical critique at story time."

River rolled her eyes, before turning to face her interlocutor, who presented an intimidating four and half foot presence.

"So, you don't like my story?"

"I thought that was patently obvious." Clearly, Miss Savonarola was distinctly unimpressed insofar as her tone indicated that River was to be regarded as little more than the intellectual equivalent of the common sand-beetle that inhabited the planet and which wasn't known for evidencing a vast intellect.

Cobb sighed internally; this wasn't going to be pretty. Surveying the class, he noted that Corvus was surreptitiously surveying potential escape routes and even Morrigan Evans was wincing in anticipated horror.

"Well, there was the slight chance that you didn't understand all the big words you were using and that you simply said it to impress a boy – albeit," River noted, somewhat condescendingly, "I would have thought you were somewhat young to be evidencing such proclivities, but then again, you never know with you provincial, back-woods folk."

"Insulting my heritage, which is a tragic resort to _ad-hominem, _doesn't negate the fact that a rusty colander holds more water than your story."

River sighed theatrically, "You do understand the concept of a story don't you?" she noted, her tone the epitome of patronising, "that it is, unless specifically noted as something biographical or sited in actual events, allowed to be presented with a degree of license that precludes a wholly rational interpretation; or is it that you believe that Little Red Riding Hood was indeed accosted by a talking wolf on the way to her grandmother's house?"

"I don't confuse poetic license with narrative stupidity. I also don't confuse allegory and metaphor with fact. Homer managed to utilise poetic license in such a way that he enhanced HIS narrative, I fail to see how your construction does such. In fact, your narrative is an insult to the comprehension impaired; have you even heard of the concept of logical continuity of events?"

"Why do I need to provide a series of logical signposts for you to follow? It is my story and I can tell it how I want – it is hardly my problem if you're not capable of following it. Would you like me to dumb it down a little more for you? Although," River noted, "I'm not sure I am capable of reducing things to a level where single-cell organisms would feel confident in their ability to comprehend what was happening."

"Why not? The media does it – in their own retarded fashion; even those idiots working out of Alliance Central can keep their propaganda ducks in a row and if those hacks at the Alliance can mange it, I'm fairly certain that you – at least on an evolutionary level – are capable of such seeing as how you appear able to stand upright and breathe at the same time."

Jayne's premonition of disaster wasn't far from coming to fruition, although he allowed himself a wry smile as he remembered something Simon had said about how River, as a young girl – about the same age as Savonarola was now – had taken everything extremely seriously to the point, in fact, where even admitting the validity of another viewpoint was tantamount to intellectual heresy (something, in Jayne's opinion, that hadn't noticeably changed in the time he had known the woman) It was also patently obvious that Ophelia Savonarola was cast from the same mould; in fact - and politely disregarding the age difference and the fact that Savonarola was as fair as River was dark – the identical stance the pair had taken in opposition made them appear as nothing so much as a pair of maleficent doppelganger.

Sighing, Jayne decided to take the higher ground: after all, he was the teacher in charge and, as such, it behove him to [at least appear] act responsibly – and he was, for some strange reason annoyed that the sanctity of his classroom had been disturbed.

"Miss Savonarola," he barked, "Miss Tam is a guest and irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with her you will act in a manner that is considered appropriate to this situation. There is a sole arbiter of what constitutes appropriate behaviour in this classroom and that person is not you. Further, even if you did hold such authority one would hope that you would exercise such in a fashion that wasn't remarkably reminiscent of a petulant child. See me after the final bell."

"Yes Sir," came the chastened response.

"As for you, Miss Tam: whilst you are indeed a guest, as I pointed out to Miss Savonarola, and certain courtesies are duly extended, it is not acceptable for you to act in such a fashion that the boundaries of those courtesies are by-passed in a fashion reminiscent of a ritual killing. As you are a guest, and not one of my charges, it would be inappropriate in the extreme for me to address your actions in the manner they so richly deserve and, unlike the very unfortunate Miss Savonarola, I can't keep you after class; I will, however, be speaking to Captain Reynolds about your behaviour. Understood?"

The tone left no room for argument.

"Yes Jayne;" and that was the end of the matter, at least on a verbalised level.

_[I can still kill her with my mind, though]_

_[There will be no killing with minds. She's ten years old, leave her alone – or are we having issues with the competition?]_

_[Competition indeed!] _ River's mind sounded mortally insulted.

_[So you're going to kill her with your mind because?]_

_[She didn't like my story.]_

_[I didn't like your story. I surely didn't like it when I was living through the events; I liked it even less when I watched the media version over the comm. and I reached the apex of my antipathy when listening to that folderol you wheeled out for story time.]_

_[Everyone's a critic]_

_[Including ten year olds who can see your story for the Dadaist mishmash it is: if you wanted to tell the story of Miranda then you should have, there's no point trying to obfuscate the truth from these children.]_

_[It's not about hiding the truth, Jayne it's about acknowledging the truth for what it is; a fucked-up mess that's more illogical that the worst drug-induced nightmare you can imagine. Savonarola might have been right, that the story was disjointed, but that's the REAL world, a world these kids are going to have to face far sooner than anyone would wish.]_

Jayne feared she was correct.


	19. Bureaucratic Machinations

_Well, it looks like I managed to get off my backside and write something – will wonders ever crease? Actually, I ended up writing large parts of this chapter twice as the first read through indicated that it was [1] Crap [2] Had the narrative and language flow of a sewage pond and was, therefore crap [see #1]._

_Seriously, the first draft may well have been written by someone else – I had initially tried to make it more formal and less esoteric and off-centre and it just felt wrong ... so I fixed it [well broke it my way]._

_Lots of in-jokes and cultural references in this chapter – I need to get out more; however, been a home-daddy to a 13month old tends to put a stop to that. _

_Recently, I have tried to be – despite the above 13 month old natural disaster – more proactive in my writing, and, largely, it has worked, however, I need reviews for this chapter if only to convince me that diverting the necessary time to write is still worth it. Frankly, I'm really too busy to mess around with this but writing still brings me some enjoyment... otherwise I be repainting the house, repairing the eaves, yadda yadda yadda ..._

_Please leave a review [or something]_

_

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_Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds _

_of a world made for man - who has no gills._

_**- Ambrose Bierce**_

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_Do you think that illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?_

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_Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way._

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* * *

... Some things never changed.

In fact, to summon a rather worn cliché, the more things changed the more they stayed the same and now, despite having gained a good two-and-a-half feet and two hundred pounds on his younger self, being summonsed to the principal's office still engendered an instinctive urge in Jayne Cobb to run to the hills or, where hills were not available, the nearest discussed bathroom from where one could surreptitiously slink from the school grounds safe in the knowledge that he was spared from retribution until the next time he stuck his head above the scholastic parapet – or turned up to a staff meeting; although, as Jayne had yet to make one of these epoch-shaking events the odds were firmly in favour of his being ambushed by the principal, in the classroom, with a whole lot of paperwork – this was slightly less worrisome than encountering Professor Plum, in the library, with a candlestick but it didn't fill the man with any great excitement.

The headmaster's office drew closer.

He wasn't sure why it was but hallways that converged on the offices of a headmaster held a dank, looming presence that bespoke the presence of an ancient malevolent evil that crouched spider-like in wait for its next victim.

Admittedly, the surreality quotient of this summons was manifest in that, in this instance, Jayne was a teacher. He wondered, idly, what sort of punishment was doled out to teachers who transgressed the dictates of the powers-that-be.

Thumb-screws?

The Rack?

A calculus lesson in a room with no door?

Probably the latter, he thought, and not with a teacher out of a teenage boy's fantasy but more likely to be the wrinkled harridan who doubled as a gargoyle at the local gothic cathedral on her days off.

After all, it was a well known fact that maths teachers were sourced from the very lowest pits of the infernal realms and that they were bound under the strongest of geas to ensure that they actually taught their profane art instead of simply removing the souls of their charges and fleeing back to the pit.

It was a vast irony, he thought, that he now found himself, on occasion – and where the curriculum demanded it – teaching maths; after each session he carefully checked his visage in the mirror to reassure himself that he had not begun the irreversible process of growing horns and a tail; he had long ago stopped listening to the Captain's intimations that his visage was diabolic-by-default.

His thoughts were wandering.

Rules; he reminded himself.

He imagined that the rules that constrained the behaviour of teachers, must represent some sort of arcane expression of judicial reprisal pursuant to the re-education and, no doubt, re-edification of adults; either that or the powers-that-be simply went to greater efforts to enact heretofore un-imagined levels of vindictiveness where those they employed were concerned...

...that, and making teachers write lines was an exercise in futility.

[Again] Admittedly, Jayne was firmly of the opinion that many adults of his [past] acquaintance – at least those that had survived the experience – would have benefited from being held accountable to the same rules laid down for his charges insofar as they had shown themselves exceptionally non-conversant with how things were [allegedly] done in the adult world. Children had the excuse of being children and were therefore granted a bit of leeway...

...Where _leeway_ was derived from the latin for 'non-fatal'.

On consideration, being made to write: 'I must show all due deference and respect to the very large man with the very large guns' would inevitably result in an even faster devolution (in any given situation) into 'resolution-by-projectile' than simply offering to shoot anyone who-moved-funny.

Jayne prevaricated. Actively.

It wasn't that Doom scared him, after all, there were very few things that scared Jayne Cobb. Of a certainty, Reavers; of even greater certainty, his sister, Lucretia's, cooking, which, under any-and-all circumstances should have been classified as a biological weapon. Jayne's family had had to settle for, not only, banning Lucretia from the kitchen but also from touching anything that may have – in times of crisis, famine, or sports event – (ostensibly) met the requirements of a food group/ comestible and which, under generic definition could be utilised for the provision of sustenance (not, of course, that anything that Lucretia provided could be considered sustaining – unless one were composed of anti-matter).

Unfortunately, banning Lucretia from the kitchen did little to resolve the issue of her previous creations especially those entities that turned out to be animate and carnivorous; certainly Alliance science had yet to fabricate a bio-containment vessel that could restrain the predatory instincts of her culinary manipulations. Fortunately, said creations could usually be persuaded (at a hundred yards with high-explosive rounds) to move away from populated areas, which was more than could be said for Lucretia's non-sentient (and ostensibly inanimate) produce one of which had, according to the latest scientific updates, collapsed in on itself under the pressure of its own internal mass and was now happily existing as - or at least resembling - a miniature black hole in the back bedroom of the Cobb's residence. Scientists – namely hyper-physicists and astronomers and, for some reason, the head of Combat Bakery from some place called Ankh Morepork – had become intensely excited by the phenomenon insofar as it refused to act in accordance with those laws previously ascribed to black holes; that is, it gave off a faint odour of vanilla and cinnamon and, as noted by one observer, appeared to be suffering from a particularly virulent form of indigestion.

The hyper-physicists looked concerned and rechecked their equations, muttering that you can indeed change the laws of physics.

The astronomers looked puzzled.

The baker was heard to mutter something about a remarkable advance in the technology of the combat arts and was later seen to approach Jayne's sister with – and this is wholly the realm of rumour and speculation – a substantial, and highly lucrative, defence contract; the only to this was the requirement that Lucretia relocate.

Jayne's sister had not been seen for several years.

To those that inquired, Jayne's parents, while concerned for their daughter's well-being, stated that they had raised all their children to be self-sufficient and that they held little-to-no fears for her safety; they did, however, retain some minor concern, for anyone who might be subjected to her cooking.

Jayne's reminiscence was interrupted by his arrival outside Mister Doom's office and his polite knock was brought immediate response with an invitation that he should enter the headmaster's sanctum – very much in the fashion, Jayne thought, that a spider might bid welcome to a fly.

"Mister Cobb? ... Mister Cobb..."

Jayne was startled from his reverie; "My apologies, Mister Doom, I lost myself in my thoughts for a moment."

Doom smiled tolerantly and waved away the apology, "No matter, from your expression I would imagine that a distraction was probably welcome."

"Rabbit holes can be annoying," Jayne agreed, "now, to continue our discussion, you were talking about the children's report cards."

"That's correct, Mister Cobb, I have received several letters, from parents, expressing consternation with respect to some of the comments you have made."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Well," noted Jayne, "I must say I am, surprised, I spent considerable time working to ensure that the comments I made were accurate and supported by relevant test scores and other data-sets, which are readily accessible should the parents –or any other concerned people – wish to conduct a review."

"True," Doom noted, accepting the truth of that statement, "however, did you have to be so blunt?"

"Blunt?" asked Jayne curiously.

"Blunt," confirmed Doom. "Let me give you an example."

The Headmaster took a moment to rifle through a geologically significant pile of papers on his desk, all of which appeared – from Jayne's inverted position – to bear the crest of the school. Finally, selecting one, Doom adjusted his glasses and began to read.

_Miss Byron displays an active interest in assuming a leadership position amongst her peers, however, as of this time, none of her peers have displayed the degree of suicidal intent necessary to allow Miss Byron to not only be not placed in charge of them but in fact to not be placed anywhere near them. While Miss Byron displays many fine attributes; for example, her strength of will and a sound sense of strategic planning, these tend to be overwhelmed by her complete lack of anything resembling empathy or compassion. It would also behoove Miss Byron to listen to people other than herself on occasion: a loud voice and heavy ordnance will never supplant the willingness and ability to build a working consensus, no matter how ably she might be to support her dictates through threats of physical violence._

"Come now, Mister Cobb, surely you could have been somewhat more ... diplomatic."

Jayne shrugged, "I thought that was diplomatic. My first draft said she was a psychopath with control issues and that she should probably be confined – in a solitary capacity – on a high-security prison world for the next thirty years or at least until the psychiatric disciplines had managed to come up with an effective treatment regime that didn't involve lots of drugs and a bottomless pit."

Doom winced. Admittedly, there was no denying that Cobb's assessment of the girl was, accurate – albeit an accuracy informed by an incomplete understanding of the subject's 'foibles'; which was a polite way of noting that anyone who wanted to completely understand the girl's behaviour would need, not only, a complete genetic assay of the girl, but advanced training in genetics in order to understand it. As far as Doom was aware, 'skilled geneticist' wasn't listed as one of Jayne Cobb's (many) talents.

"Alright then, Mister Cobb, let us, for the moment, accept the accuracy, and intended diplomacy, of your commentary pursuant to Miss Byron's more 'individual' traits and examine some of your other observations:"

_... I foresee a future for Mister Corvus that inevitably ends up with either: his execution for treason or his appointment as minister for counter-intelligence and propaganda after the success of said treasonous activities. . _

_... In no circumstance should Mister O'Halloran be allowed near any institution that relies upon statistics, odds, ratios, options, chance or chaos-based patterns of probability computation for the basis of its operations. ... Further, I strongly advise that he be kept as far away as possible from any networked computer system... _

_...In short, Miss Evans is possibly the most terrifying creature with whom I have ever come into contact and of the definitive opinion that the safest place with respect to her is the other side of the 'verse and, trust me when I say this, I'm speaking from experience..._

"I didn't write that last one," protested Jayne.

"Yes you did," was the bemused response. "Actually no, you didn't 'publish' it – although a scan of the deleted files on your hard drive dumped to the emergency server backup does show that you did in fact 'write' it."

"You searched my hard drive?"

"Not precisely."

"So," and the words were clearly bitten off, as Jayne Cobb was not a man who tolerated prying into those things he considered personal, "if you didn't search my hard drive, how did you 'find' something that was – or so I thought – deleted?"

Doom had the grace to look [somewhat] embarrassed. "As principal, and founder of the school, amongst other things, I have administrator access to all levels and sub-levels of the computer system, when I was searching for your reports I didn't clearly specify what documents I wanted to retrieve and thus the system gave me a complete data dump." The headmaster's subtle embarrassment changed to an expression of poorly suppressed amusement, "If you know anything about computers you'll know that the concept of 'deleted' has many levels; while I apologise for the seeming invasion of, what you no doubt consider to be, your private files, I am pleased that I was – however inadvertently – able to recover them. I find your candour immensely refreshing. In times past, when I have come across something I shouldn't it is usually of a fashion commensurate with petty criminality; frankly, it is pleasing in the extreme to not discover that – yet another - of my staff is attempting to cook the stationary budget in their favour."

"You had staff trying to defraud you?"

"Not for very long."

"You mean you discovered the fraud in short order?"

"No. I mean the staff in question were not in a position to continue defrauding me; or, perhaps I should state more correctly, they did not remain in a position where they were able to continue attempting to defraud me."

"You had them fired?" queried Jayne.

"After a fashion." Doom allowed himself a smile of reminiscence.

The [former] mercenary considered what he knew, firsthand, about his erstwhile employer, collated that with the various snippets of scuttlebutt he had gathered and decided that he really didn't want to know. Adelai Niska may have been a personification of evil intent to some – certainly to the extent where the majority of the 'verse wouldn't dream of crossing his path – however, as far as Jayne was concerned, Doom consumed buttered Niskas-on-toast for morning tea. Thus, with his intelligence taken under advisement Jayne chose the discretionary aspect of the valour equation and shrugged:

"Your decision and not my concern." That didn't stop his [overactive] imagination picturing larcenous staff being fired [out of a cannon, over the main building, and into the street beyond]. He took a breath. "Moving on, what do you want me to do with regards to the report cards?"

Doom smiled beatifically and Jayne felt the urge to run – he was also coming the conclusion that his prior candour was a mistake but that feeling was subsumed by the need to spontaneously develop the power of teleportation and remove himself to somewhere safe; preferably extra-dimensional.

"In light of the concern expressed by the parents I have taken the liberty of scheduling a series of face-to-face meetings so you may more explicitly express yourself on the matters raised in the report cards; under the circumstances I thought it best that all parties have the opportunity to express themselves in an open forum."

Jayne was horrified "You want me to talk to real, live parents ... about their children ..."

"Don't worry Mister Cobb, I'll protect you." If anything, the predatory smile on Dooms face was akin to a shark who had just returned from the dentist: white, gleaming and a symphony in high-definition enamel.

"For some reason, Sir, that doesn't fill me with great confidence."

* * *

**Bellerophon**.

His chance to slay the dragon that personified his guilt.

But first, a shower. The tramp freighter upon which he had travelled was crewed by a group who had, taken the concept of not bathing to its logical conclusion and such was their descent into a miasma of filth that various rats, mice and airborne pathogens disembarked at the same time he did. The [former] Operative winced. When a self-respecting, bubonic-plague infested, flea wanted nothing to do with a group of potential targets you knew things were not the best - or the generated stench was the most effective insect repellent ever created; it certainly repelled humans most effectively and the [former] Operative had, where possible, conducted all communications by viewscreen and, where circumstance made that impossible, by shouting very loudly.

Bidding a pleasant goodbye to the various vermin – after all, what use was an operative if he didn't retain _[mad skillz]_ certain esoteric abilities – he set out to find some accommodation, the sole criteria being that the place have a shower. Truth-be-told he would have fired bullets into a water-filled, overhanging sombrero if such would have provided an immediacy to his need to be clean but he decided that it was probably easier finding accommodation than a large hat; there was also the possibility that he would have to fight the attached Mexican if he really wanted a sombrero and not only could he not be bothered with a confrontation but he was trying to tread a new path filled with overturned leaves – although he reminded himself that he should avoid donkeys as he remembered from his readings in history that bad things happened to people that entered towns on donkeys with lots of leaves cast in front of them.

While it was near impossible for one of his training to wander aimlessly, he did his best. Admittedly, the lack of direction was largely subtended by gross ignorance about his location. The tramp freighter he had travelled on had no connection to the cortex – or, if it did, such could not be located, or identified amongst the brobdingnagian detritus that filled every free orifice of the ship. Perhaps, he considered, that was a blessing for, if he had found a cortex uplink on the ship that would have meant having to touch it... Further, his contact had given him no information about his destination, or the situation, other than that he had to be on Bellerophon and that extreme urgency was warranted.

So, here he was, on a planet he knew nothing about, looking for something - although he didn't know what, in a situation where he had minimal (actually no) intelligence. He hated it. He felt like a naked man in a porcupine colony; every move was potentially hazardous.

As a former operative, his network of contacts was substantially different from his past life. No longer were crisp, Alliance-encoded dossiers uplinked for his personal attention, now information was as likely to be passed in a hushed whisper in the darkened recesses of a public convenience in a backwater town by creatures that eminently fulfilled the descriptor of being villainous scum. Sometimes he longed for his former lifestyle if only because one of the drawbacks of meeting in public conveniences was that one was sometimes mistaken – by local law enforcement – for well-known entertainers.

At random, he chose a street that branched from the main thoroughfare and turned into it and lo, came face-to-face with a billboard that proclaimed that the establishment it represented was the finest hostelry on the planet.

The [former] Operative was dubious, anything that called itself The Gingerbread House couldn't be good, but then he would have taken a room in a Sarlacc if it meant not returning to that damn freighter.

* * *

The dog had sat outside the administrative block for several hours. It was waiting for the large human it had decided would adopt it. It hadn't advised the human of such but then as humans' were relatively slow on the uptake, and tended to startle easily when presented with things they weren't prepared for, the dog had decided to ease the human into things slowly.

The dog wasn't sure what it was about this particular human. It didn't appear to function any differently from the standard models that it encountered on a daily basis although its movements could be said to be somewhat more efficient than average although, in the dog's opinion, that wasn't particularly difficult for something that had to function on two legs.

Perhaps the human simply smelt good; to the dog that was usually more than enough when it came to humans.

...And speaking of humans, here was his now; it didn't appear pleased to see him.

"Back again." It wasn't a question.

Clearly this human's powers of observation were astounding.

"Go away."

'Shan't', which was expressed with the pitying expression the dog reserved for particularly slow puppies ... and humans.

The large human sighed and muttered something to itself about how this day couldn't get any more fucking fabulous before turning and heading off up the road that ran alongside the boundary of the school grounds; the dog followed.

After several moments the large human stopped and turned; "Did I, or did I not, tell you to go away?"

"Well yes," acknowledged the dog transmitting its acknowledgement of the human with a flick of its ears, "however, I am given to understand that you've been telling various members of your crew to 'go away' for a long time now and they appear to pay the same amount of attention to your wishes that I am going to; that is, none."

Jayne regarded the animal with a quizzical expression; it seemed to understand exactly what he was saying and, further, responded with that same look of tolerantly polite inquiry that he received – on a regular basis – from Doom and some of his more frightening charges.

A book wouldn't solve this, he needed alcohol.

* * *

_Date: 5/2412_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint _

_To: Head Council Intelligence; Head Council Security Operations; Head Oversight Liaison_

_Re: Sapiens Superior Iteration X_

Extensive genetic study of the delivered specimen indicates chromosomal mutations at junctures never previously recorded in databases. It is theorised that the mutations may account for some of the more 'outlandish' attributes and abilities ascribed to the specimen.

As no recorded material exists to corroborate this ascription my colleagues and I remain dubious as to the associated claims.

However, while we cannot accept unsubstantiated commentary we find it pertinent to note that the composition of certain ligamentous and muscular structures in conjunction with the unusual synaptic connective network in primary cortex lead us to believe that further examination of the subject is warranted.

In the interests of scientific inquiry, we direct that your operatives attempt to acquire this division another specimen, preferably functional.

* * *

_Date: 137/2457_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint_

_To: Head Council Intelligence; Head Council Security Operations; Head Oversight Liaison_

_Re: Specimen X _

All;

We are, with the [live] acquisition of this latest specimen prepared to accept that previous communications and extraneous biological ephemera may indeed represent a new evolutionary stage and, to that effect we will begin in-depth analysis of the extant [live] sample

* * *

_Date: 266/2461_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint_

_To: Head Council Intelligence; Head Council Security Operations; Head Oversight Liaison_

_Re: Specimen X _

Latest testing [results] have identified specific DNA markers that appear to uniquely identify the requisite specimens. Operatives of your agencies are directed to 'requisition' said specimens from the populace at large.

* * *

_Date: 455/2461_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Head Oversight Liaison_

_To: Head Council Intelligence; Head Council Security Operations; Mr Flint_

_Re: Specimen X _

There's no way the populace will stand for the wholesale 'requisitioning' of their members; further, this abrogates the founding charter with regards to the welfare of the commonweal; Oversight Liaison will report this matter to the wider Council for discussion

* * *

_Date: 457/2461_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint_

_To: Head Council Security Operations; Head Council Intelligence _

_Re: Accident_

Regrettably, the head of Oversight Liaison has met with an [unfortunately fatal] accident, I join with you all in mourning the loss of that worthy and pray that their replacement is as steadfast in their beliefs as their [lamented] predecessor.

No doubt I can rely on one of you to fully 'brief' the new Oversight Liaison Head on the pertinent details of this ongoing project.

* * *

_Date: 4 /2501_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint_

_To: Head Council Security Operations; Head Council Intelligence; Head Oversight Liaison_

Acquisition of suitable specimens has not met expectations; it would appear that a previous colleague was correct in their observations with respect to public acceptance of 'requisitions'. I propose the formulation of an organisation, with an ostensibly acceptable socialised persona for the housing of our specimens.

See to it.

* * *

_Date: 114 /2504_

_File Status: Eyes Only_

_Clearance: Omega Omega_

_From: Mr Flint_

_To: Head Council Security Operations; Head Council Intelligence; Head Oversight Liaison_

This is intolerable. I don't care if it is a 'school'; the specimens are not allowed to leave. Not even if requests for such are from the appropriate authorities. See to it that a suitable degree of distance is kept between the specimen programme and the reclamation programme you will create. Our hands must appear clean.

* * *

Li-Han was worried.

His people placed, ever so carefully, over the years in the Security Directorate of the Alliance Council had disappeared.

Overnight.

All of them.

More worrying was that no two of them would have known whom the other was, even if they happened to be engaged in a particularly vigorous sexual congress (with each other) – or more, for that matter, if things were particularly exciting; so there was no way they could have given their unknown confederates away.

He sighed. It wasn't that the personnel in question were particularly vital – or highly-placed – but what they represented was access, even if only a crack - and the smallest trickle had been known to gouge out the mightiest canyon if given enough time.

Time, he was beginning to think, that he didn't have.


	20. In the Asylym of the Mountain King

**Long authors' note: bear with me:**

_It has been 8 months since I updated this fic. I have managed, to write a couple of short story-ish ideas in the Harry Potter realm and a Bob the Builder/ Harry Potter crossover is ongoing: these haven't been challenging at least in the sense of providing continuity and ensuring that things tie up – simply put I was trying to generate fun in my writing again._

_I had good reason._

_Since this work was last updated two events severely changed my world and left me with much to cope with. Firstly, in March, my mother died; it was a good and timely death, but one that affected me more than I thought it would. The second event was my slowly weaning myself off long-term (12 years) usage of medication for depression – it has taken about 6 months for my brain bio-chemistry to truly stabilise: during this period, I've found writing extremely difficult; while it is true that writing can be a cathartic experience I found that you don't get a lot of catharsis if the words are gibberish: hopefully normal services will now resume._

_I'd like to note that a review for my last chapter, annoyed me a great deal, not because of its negative slant, but because of its unfounded assumptions: irrespective of how unfounded such might be, it DID make me go back and look at why I write, which can only be a good thing: the assumptions were still wrong though. Heh._

_If anyone out there is still reading, or if someone discovers this fic and enjoys it, I thank you. Hopefully, the next chapter will occur somewhat more expeditiously, however, I will note that I am going to give writing a work of my own invention a go – a real book ...phwoah! I also want to note that the first parts of the chapter are a little clunky, written as they were in light of the above ... I re-edited as much as I could without destroying them. As always, this is self-beta-ed any mistakes I missed are your imagination._

_My usual apologies to the literary, televisual and motion picture canon - a few proverbs and philosophers didn't get away unscathed either.  
_

_Thanks for reading and, if you feel so inclined, leaving a review._

* * *

_For every person who wants to teach there are approximately_

_thirty people who don't want to learn - much._

**W.****C.****Sellar****and****R.****J.****Yeatman**, _And__Now__All__This__(1932)__introduction_

_.  
_

_Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional._

**Unknown**

* * *

Jayne hated school halls.

Now, the reasonable man - or a psychiatrist with a modicum of training - might suggest that a hatred of a school halls was somewhat irrational; to Jayne's way of thinking there was nothing irrational about hating school halls for as far as he was concerned they were nothing more than internment camps for children. He shuddered at the memory of being herded into such every morning that he attended school and thereafter being forced to submit to a most hideous and demeaning of tortures: group singing.

On some occasions the song was a piece of patriotic drivel composed, with unthinking adoration, by a mindless political sycophant. It was a constant mystery to the [former] mercenary that an – apparent – overwhelming love for one's country/planetary alliance/ flag reduced a person's creative capacity by an exponential level inversely proportional to the amount of adoration expressed. Jayne was reminded of a phrase he had once heard about how the less a statesman amounted to the more he loved the flag. In Jayne's opinion, the worst offenders of this sort wrote songs about their flag and then forced innocent school children to sing about it.

If it wasn't flags and countries, it was anodyne songs of praise to an alleged all-powerful deity: not that Jayne had any particular issue with the notional existence of a divine being as such a being had, if it did exist - as of the current date, done nothing to Jayne which could be considered within the bounds of reasonable provocation. He had, after a long and involved discussion with his collection of existential philosophy texts, decided that the Shepherd was a good man, insofar as, from an ontological perspective, the Shepherd's definition of self, through the intercession of a creator, did not manifestly interfere with his own worldview.

Further, Jayne wasn't the sort of person to start shooting at the sight of missionaries; for a start, their general lack of camouflage, and their inability to keep quiet for more than ten seconds, made them far too easy a target that, and the in-season bag limit was far too restrictive.

However, that didn't excuse the vast majority of the music, which appeared to consist of pathetic bleatings around the theme of how people either weren't worthy of being loved by said creator (which to Jayne's way of thinking was a self-fulfilling prophecy) or, and this particular line of entreaty usually caused the large man to smirk disdainfully, how dreadfully evil and sinful they were and that they threw themselves on the mercy of their god to forgive their evil bad evilness. Having encountered truly evil people, Jayne was of the opinion that these people who wrote these tormented wailings didn't need a god as much they needed to get a grip.

But the horror-of-horrors were not songs to God-and-country but the ill-considered tunings of country people writing songs to their sheep. To be fair, Jayne conceded, not every damn folk song was about sheep – but whomever wrote the tunes praising the bucolic idyll had probably only encountered a sheep in their dreams; and people who dreamed about sheep were in need of something more than could be provided by in-depth psychiatric help alone – at the very least a visit by the local rep for PETA was recommended: and these days, PETA came armed.

In a similar way that the relationship between patriotism and a lack of patriotic musical talent was proportional, Jayne held a certain belief that the composer of a folk song was statistically more likely to live in a steel-and-concrete tower as determined by the number of times they used certain, key words: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme being an example..

To reiterate: Jayne hated school halls.

* * *

The hotel room wasn't what one would call spacious; fortunately, it also wasn't a flea-infested hovel, for that the [former] operative was grateful; he'd had enough filth and its associated miasma to last a lifetime (a full-term, normal human lifetime not the sadly truncated operative-lifespan he'd come to expect) from his 'voyage' on the 'freighter' that had deposited him on Bellerophon. Upon checking into his room, he'd taken a shower, then a bath, and then another shower and he still felt like he was coated in the funk of forty thousand years.

Sighing resignedly, he dressed; he knew that things weren't going to get any easier.

Taking a seat at the room's computer station, he punched in an rf-code he had committed to memory ... a long time ago ... from a different life; fortunately, for the underpinnings of his world view, the reception he received was the same as always.

"What do you want? I'm starting to lose count of the number of times I have told you never to contact me and mine again."

The [former] operative smiled his first genuine smile in what felt like an age and felt an – almost, and wholly uncharacteristic – impish glee settle upon him.

"Captain Reynolds, it is truly a pleasure to hear your voice."

"The pleasure is all yours then; what do you want?"

"I have information ... and a warning."

Reynolds' face conveyed a range of emotions. Curiosity warred with obstinacy and the knowledge that a person such as this particular caller wouldn't waste his time with frivolous social call; admittedly, it still took the former Independent a moment to resist the urge to tell the [former] operative what he could do with his warning.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"This warning?"

"What of it?" The [former] Operative was enjoying himself

"Are. You. . .To Me?" Reynolds was speaking through gritted teeth and clenched jaw and a small vein was to be seen pulsing at his temple.

"You know, Captain, that shade of red you're turning doesn't really suit you..." at this declaration, Reynolds began to turn a distinctly unhealthy hue and the (In)Operative decided that he had derived enough amusement from the situation, although he was sorely tempted to tell Reynolds not to worry as he'd be here all week. "Captain, I apologise; I have had a very trying couple of days and appear to have been somewhat overcome: most unlike me, I assure you. Now, as to this warning: those gentlemen callers, the ones who are particularly fond of Miss Tam?"

Reynolds' eyes tightened noticeably.

"You remember them? The ones with the blue hands? Well, my sources inform me that they're on their way here."

"But ... Miranda ...," the Captain whispered

"Come now Captain, surely you didn't think that ALL the various plots and machinations that underpin the wonder that is the Alliance stopped just because you and your merry band happened to pull the wings off ONE of its flies – don't be foolish."

"No, I guess not; I guess we ... no, I mean, I guess I got complacent."

The one-time Alliance agent nodded in understanding, "Something that is hardly surprising given the extended period of surcease you and yours have experienced in the wake of your revelation; the Alliance may well be an oblivious monolith but it can't be said to be completely stupid. The events that comprised Miranda were enough of a public relations nightmare without compounding the issue by pursuing a particularly asinine personal vendetta against those who'd made them look bad; they'd wait until later, when things had quietened down when. To paraphrase your late friend, Mister Universe, the signal had gone cold, it was still out there; it simply wasn't beating down everyone's door anymore;" he paused and added quietly, and (clearly) regretfully, "Yesterday's news."

"...And so it begins again ..."

If the Operative had expected Reynolds to rail against fate – which he hadn't – he would have been surprised at the non-emotiveness of the response; the sheer stoicism and resignation of the Captain's reply, however, reminded him of why Reynolds had been such a worthy opponent

"Actually, no," corrected the Operative, "This is the second part of what I had to tell you. Yes, the Blue Hands are coming, but not for you; and not for Miss Tam – well, not directly," he amended, "If they could get her as a side order I have no doubt they'd be overjoyed."

"Then who?" curiosity warred with relief, something that was abruptly truncated at the Operative's monosyllabic response.

"I don't know."

* * *

"Mister Cobb?"

The question was tentative, as if, despite the fact that there was a small (exquisitely lettered) sign on the desk in front of him proclaiming his identity, the inquirer was uncertain that the physical reality was indeed related to the description: a bit like in a zoo. However, in some small measure, the tentative nature of the inquiry quelled Jayne's reflexive urge to run away, or shoot – or run away to find cover from which to shoot. Looking up, he met the somewhat concerned visage of a middle-aged couple who, whilst clearly well-to-do, had made an effort to appear as 'jus' plain folk'.

"Yes, I am he," replied Jayne, standing in – his approximation of – welcome.

The affirmation seemed to firm the couple's resolve and they stepped forward somewhat more confidently.

"Mister Cobb, I am Aurelius Corvus and this is my wife, Henrietta; you teach our son, Uriel." Jayne surreptitiously started looking for exits all the while gesturing for the couple to take a seat in the chairs that had been provided for the occasion.

As they sat, Henrietta Corvus turned an arch eye on their child's teacher "You look nervous, Mister Cobb."

Jayne wheeled out his best attempt at a dissembling smile, "My first parent-teacher interviews; I wasn't always a teacher."

"What were you doing previously?" the Corvus' asked, although from the measuring look the couple were giving Jayne, he had a fair idea of the list of potential positions they were rapidly short-listing in their heads. He, therefore, decided to lead off with something-approximating-an-answer that could be said to resemble the truth if you didn't look at it too closely. Actually, on consideration, it WAS the truth, albeit the truth presented from a particular perspective.

"I've done quite a few things over the years; however, my last position was as a security specialist on a trader-ship."

The Corvus' glanced at each other in a bemused fashion, before attempting to school their expressions into something that resembled a facsimile of polite attention. "I wasn't aware," queried the husband, "That piracy was such an issue in this sector of space, at least not to the degree where it would require traders to carry 'security specialists'."

Jayne shrugged, "It's not, but then I didn't say I was operating as a security specialist in this sector of space, did I?"

Aurelius Corvus shrugged in acknowledgment of the point: he couldn't very well challenge the man on a point of semantics, especially when it was his question and that he had no way of knowing the degree to which Mister Cobb was making origami animals out of his answer.

"True enough, Mister Cobb, true enough. Might I ask, then, how you came to be engaged at Mister Doom's establishment? For all Doom's eccentricities, his results are unquestioned and his scholarship acceptances to the best core universities are the best on the planet if not – pirate attacks notwithstanding," he added with a self-deprecating smile "the sector."

"I was asked to, as a favour to a Mister Li-Han, who is a business associate of my previous employer. I was perfectly happy where I was, doing what I was doing, but the opportunity to utilise my skills in a radically different environment was one I couldn't turn down."

Corvus laughed, delightedly, "You mean you were ordered to."

"Something like that." Cobb rolled his eyes in mock forbearance. "I was under contract to my employer and as the terms of the contract weren't breached by his determination that I should serve in this capacity I had little recourse but to follow his instructions." The large man paused, a considering look on his face, "Of course, I could have shot my employer, stolen his ship and left the sector but that would have been fairly difficult to explain away at my next job interview and suh an approach was far to close in its resemblance to real-life hard work – far better I come and shape the formless minds of uncultured youth; and, before you ask," Jayne held up a large hand forestalling the next question, one he could see coming over the horizon in a fashion similar to Apollo firing up his chariot, "Mister Doom and I had an extensive interview whereby I established my academic _bona__fides_ to his satisfaction. Now, I believe we are here to discuss your son, Uriel..."

"Uriel loves you," Missus Corvus broke in, "He constantly proclaims that you are the best teacher he's ever had."

Jayne was so stunned he started looking around for dead parrots.

* * *

"So, what do we do?"

"What do you mean, 'Do' ... Sir?" the honorific took a while to arrive.

"Those blue-handed bastards are on the move and are coming here."

"So?" Zoe's tone was – at best – incurious.

"What do you mean ... 'So?'

"I mean ... so, as in: 'so what'? They're not coming for us," the last word was subtly stressed; Zoe continued. "It doesn't happen to matter what I personally think about the source of this information, what is important is that he's not the sort of person to pull imaginary rabbits out of his backside simply for the amusement of it all."

The captain considered contradicting his friend and colleague; she hadn't been there when the Operative had been methodically jerking his chain in interests of stress release. Before he could even begin formulating a response, however, Zoe continued.

"Don't go misunderstandin' me, Mal, I rightly recognise how dangerous those bastards are, but who in God's name appointed us his holy avengers?"

"...I ..."

"If it's not the bloody Alliance, and Christ only knows I supported you in that particular crusade because you happened to be right and not because I happened to be beholdin' to you because of Serenity Valley, it's something, or someone, else – when, Mal, when are you going to just live and let live?"

"... I ...," Reynolds paused, expecting to be interrupted again the space between drawing breath and shaping said breath into a response. "...I could say, Zoe, that I don't rightly know; but that would be a lie. It would be equally foolish of me to outright deny the truth in your words: but that's not the point."

"So what's the point?"

"To grossly simply things, Zoe, their very existence offends me and, if it's the last bloody thing I do, I'll wipe them from the very face of the 'verse. I'll eradicate them so completely that even the 'verse herself won't hold a memory of what they once were."

Zoe was feeling the need to back away very slowly from the crazy man in front of her; captain, friend and even brother Malcolm Reynolds may have been, but even family members needed to be locked up on occasion. Zoe Washburne understood anger. She understood hate. She even understood the despair that came with the perception of complete loss and total devastation; but this, this she didn't understand. Her friend was treading a line of definition that bespoke crusade ... that preached a holy war against something that gave form to the term monolith and despite all their battles, against even the most overwhelming odds, this was the first time that she had feared, not for her life, but for her sanity.

Fortunately, Malcolm Reynolds wasn't an idiot – he had read the signs, the emotions that had flickered across his friend's face like a demented ticker-tape and held up a hand to forestall her incipient move for the straitjacket they kept in the medical bay.

"You'll note, Zoe, I said; 'to grossly simplify,' I've outgrown the need to ride off like madman waving a sword every time someone offends my sensibilities."

"...And when did this sudden burst of maturity occur?"

Reynolds grinned, "About a week ago."

* * *

The interviews with the parents had, on the whole, been positive; of course, positive would have been defined – in Jayne's mind –before the event, as not being threatened, insulted, assaulted, bludgeoned, stabbed, whipped, shot and a few other things for which he had pictures, but not words.

He was, between sips of a particularly nice grade of tea he had discovered, in the process of tidying up the various administrivia that Doom had informed him was pertinent to the occasion – and for which, he should have hired a mule (or two) – when a quiet approach alerted him to a new presence.

"Can I help you?" he inquired, without turning around, assuming that it was one of his colleagues, or Headmaster Doom, requiring his attention to some matter of school business.

"Mister Cobb?" The voice was tentative, and clearly did not belong to any of his colleagues, at least none that he could remember being introduced to; unless Doom had a few tucked away in a secret basement which, on consideration of the man-in-question, was entirely possible. Turning, Jayne was momentarily struck dumb and the only words that blazed across his conscious mind were 'Helllooooo Nurse!' Fortunately, for his professional reputation and (what would have become) the tattered shreds of his dignity, he managed to restrain himself.

The woman standing in front of his desk was, in a word, stunning; at least in respect to Jayne's interpretation of such, which wasn't, despite ongoing remarks from the 'professional' side of his ship-based' employment, defined by the categories: 'female' and 'breathing'. Jayne was fairly certain that Inara was still irked at him for a series of statement he had made the previous month that had included the words: 'not with a bargepole' and 'I put my money in a term deposit, not a public convenience' – admittedly, that last statement had nearly got him shot...

...But, by God, it was worth it.

Anyhow, an internal monologue categorising what he found attractive was neither here nor there as this was (by dint of an exclusionary process that rapidly distilled a series of questions that excluded staff/ others/ colleagues and madmen) clearly a parent. Jayne's cognitive faculties had, by this stage, managed to reboot and he examined the woman more closely. While, pale – almost white -blonde hair wasn't unusual, paired with grey eyes and an almost elfin cast to her features could only mean one thing.

"Missus Evan, I presume?" Jayne prepared to run away; he also gestured for the woman to take a seat he was, after all, polite in his potentialised-terror.

"That's right, and it's Miss, and it's Amédée; I never married Morrigan's father and then he got shot before Morrigan was born, so I didn't see the point in either changing my name or saddling her with the name of someone she'd never know: anyway, he was a bastard."

"That's a rather ... um ... " Jayne diligently went searching for a phrase that was within the bounds of something that might have been considered polite "... direct assignation."

"Life is short, Mister Cobb; short and hard," Miss Evan gave a somewhat impish smile, "A bit like Morrigan's father actually; now, I believe I'm here to talk about my daughter – just as soon as you finish choking, that is."

Jayne cleared his throat, politely turning his head away whilst doing so; it also gave him an opportunity to roll his eyes, clearly the mother was going to be as much of a challenge as the daughter, albeit for markedly different reasons; he momentarily wondered if a teacher had ever been beaten to death by innuendo.

"Alright, Miss Evans," he said, turning to face the woman, "Let's begin. Morrigan's marks are -outstanding, beyond outstanding actually, and place her well beyond her actual age-group in terms of scholastic achievement." In reality, Morrigan's standardised aptitude scores didn't just place her beyond her peer group; they placed her somewhere in the 99.99th percentile of all scores, 'verse-wide, adults included; it was only the fact that she hadn't quite developed the language skills to match the formidable practical applications of intelligence that standardised tests recorded that caused many people to regard her as an endearingly-cute moppet of a child.

Jayne had been around River Tam far far too long to think that.

Even before he saw the child's first standardised marks he had recognised the signs; having River greet the child as 'sister' upon the children's crusade that had visited Serenity only confirmed it; further, both Wash and Book, whom had also encountered the child, had also noted the similarities to River – admittedly, Wash had also compared her to one of his dinosaurs and had commented, generally, on the alarming nature of Jayne's entire class, so his determination was somewhat suspect: the Shepherd's, however, was not .

Amédée Evans shrugged. "Morrigan's always been an intelligent child; takes after me, I guess," the last was said with a self-deprecating smirk.

"I see," replied Jayne, carefully – with extreme caution actually - this was, after all, an Evans.

Evan's smirk broadened into a wide smile, "Why Mister Cobb, Morrigan never described you as being reticent..."

I'm fairly certain she never described me as having a death wish either, he thought. Jayne, forgoing his usual mantra involving the mobius strip that defined the concepts of discretion and valour, decided to play the part of the professional "All right then, Miss ... I mean, Amédée, I'll bite; why does Morrigan take after you?"

The impish smile returned, "Would you like my full title?"

Jayne sighed in bemused resignation, "If you must; lay on MacDuff."

"Oh, I must ... I must ..."

"Stop teasing and just get on with it, would you; I'm not getting any younger."

"But you are looking infinitely more distinguished by the second. Anyhow, that' neither here nor there. My full title is ..."

"...Doctor Evans, how lovely to see you again."

Amédée Evans pouted, "Jeremiah, you spoiled my recitation."

Headmaster Doom appeared amused – in his own recently resurrected fashion. "Playing the blond moron again were we, my dear? It is most unbecoming for one of your stature."

"But it is immense fun," she cast a speculative eye at Jayne, "And Mister Cobb was being such a good sport about it all."

"Mister Cobb has a reputation for being a good sport; you should see his class. Anyway," Doom continued, "As I am here, I shall do the honours; Jayne Cobb be known to Doctor Amédée Evans, M.D, PH.D, Ph.D, Ph.D."

If the pair were expecting Jayne to be overawed, they were to be disappointed, for he simply shrugged. "Three doctorates? I'm surprised you found time to meet Morrigan's father, let alone do anything about it; abbreviated as his presence may have been."

Amédée Evans blushed, and then rewarded Jayne with a broad grin, "I am impressed Mister Cobb, most men, when presented with my accomplishments, shrivel up and try to talk about sports and guns."

"I don't need to talk about guns." Jayne too, could be obscure in his references, although the subtle stress he placed on the verb was not missed by either party: albeit Doom was no doubt aware of Jayne's provenance, so to speak.

Judging by the assessing look, Evans' was giving Jayne – and, in particular, the speculative glance she cast over the hard lines of callus that tracked his hands - it was fairly certain that she had deduced at least some of his past.

Jayne noted, but didn't particularly care, that he was being so inspected; it wasn't like he could hide his hands – unless he took to wearing gloves everywhere he went, in which case he might as well wear a sign ... and a bell. While he hadn't been asked to dramatically alter his appearance for this mission he would have rebelled if he had been asked to remove the calluses on his hands. While those unfamiliar with the role of a mercenary – a highly-trained, extremely-competent mercenary; that is – might have considered such a 'cosmetic' alteration irrelevant, any person with even the slightest knowledge of the mercenary arts would have informed them that, not only, were the calluses a form of in-built-protection for the body they also, over time, moulded themselves to the individual curves of the mercenary's individualised arsenal: at least if the mercenary had survived long enough to retain an arsenal for any length of time.

Jayne had, and his weapons – despite his proviso against gloves – fit him so.

"Not always a teacher then?"

"You could say that."

"I believe I just did."

"I can see why you have three , your grasp of the obvious is truly remarkable."

"Play nicely children," murmured Doom, as he wandered off, a small smile tracing his, normally saturnine, features.


	21. Communication with the Living

_See, this is what happens when life gets too busy and you fall out of practise and, further, lose the discipline of constantly writing._

_No excuses, simply life got in the way and I was too lazy to fight it. I do have an 8 week old baby in the house, which explains what I was doing for the past 2 months…_

_Anyway – hope you enjoy it (or some of it)_

* * *

_Absurdity, n.:  
A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.  
- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"_

* * *

It had, from Doom's perspective, been an interesting evening. Whilst not the type to routinely engage in voyeuristic pursuits – insofar as the average person retained a degree of interest for him equivalent to the evaporation of moisture pursuant to its effect on the hardening of surface coverings - he found that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to observe Jayne Cobb in this most unnatural of habitats.

He felt himself coming over all anthropological.

It helped, of course, that Cobb was, to damn the word (and the man) with faint praise, an 'interesting' subject. First and foremost was the man's appearance, which, even when accoutred in a thoroughly bespoke manner – as determined by the Board of Governors in the school charter: a document, which if Doom had his way, would have long been launched into the sun – was wholly atavistic in the way it exuded a faint, but palpable, aura of menace.

This, of course, made Cobb a perfect fit for the class of lunatics to which he had been assigned; inasmuch as they needed a keeper – or, perhaps, a lion tamer - not a pedagogue.

Yet however menacing Cobb might be, he did scrub up to the point where he bore a passing resemblance to a – if somewhat piratical – gentleman; certainly there was a pervasive air of debonair danger about the man that had, on several occasions, caused the ladies in the administration block to comment positively on his presence which, when you considered that the ladies in question averaged a good four-score years in age (and between them ruled the local temperance and chastity league) was saying something.

However, Cobb was more than an ambulatory collection of threatening gestures – he had a mind to match the menace, even if the man did his best to obfuscate his intellect to the point where it would have been easier finding a black hole at the bottom of a coal mine. Clearly, Cobb played on creating the appearance of being an ill-educated thug, and he had intimated as much to Doom when he noted that clever plans and stratagems were all well-and-good but a bullet (or knife, or garrotte or…. Doom had patiently waited while Cobb went off onto a tangent about various implements of death) killed far more quickly and effectively than plotting someone to death. Further, experience had taught Cobb that standing around congratulating yourself (on how clever you were) was an invitation for the gods-of-chance to show up and palpably demonstrate why you weren't. Quick and brutal might, Cobb had noted, lack a degree of finesse, but a dead person usually lacked the ability to come back and debate the methodological merit of their demise.

Doom found it somewhat bemusing that Cobb had never chosen to develop a more cultured side; certainly it wasn't a matter of ability and its lack was highlighted by the degree to which Cobb had developed his other skills; somewhat inevitably, this meant that Cobb's interactions in, what was, ostensibly, polite society, presented an on-going battle between the man's base urges, instincts and training and the intellectual understanding that doing so would be a very ... bad ... thing … . While Doom readily acknowledged that coming from the Rim Worlds necessitated a somewhat rough-and-ready approach to existence – especially when coupled with a Cobb's chosen career - and usually meant that the necessity for learning to cock one's pinky finger when drinking tea from the best china was somewhat neglected in the wider scheme of things, it certainly wouldn't have hurt. Doom also had to acknowledge that, within the wider mercenary community , learning or, at least the effete form thereof, associated with books, would have been regarded as, a best, a form of mental aberration and, at worst - and more than likely - as an exploitable weakness (even if Cobb was about as 'weak' as a bank vault made out of the remains of a collapsed star) and within the wider mercenary community weakness, even the perception thereof, was to be hidden at all costs.

So Doom settled in to watch the walking contradiction that was his staff member … and occasionally wished that he'd brought popcorn.

There were times when the Operative wanted to launch his personal computer into orbit such was the frustration it engendered. While it was true that it was a remarkable piece of machinery, functioning at a level of computational power equivalent to that of the most powerful Alliance starships (after all, Operatives had to have top-of-the line equipment in order to sneak at peak effectiveness), the damn thing possessed an operating system designed by a moron.

Fortunately, morons - and their operating systems -, could be bypassed with a little creative programming.

Having refrained from manually launching the bothersome machine into a low planetary orbit, the Operative briefly fought with his email handler - a cunning application based on a theoretical breeding programme involving a gin-trap and superglue – insofar as 'fought' indicated that the threat to permanently delete it wasn't an idle one. As most applications these days were, at least, semi-sentient, the programme obligingly promised to let the Operative leave, once he had finished accessing his email, in return for its electronic life.

Finally, he was in.

There were two new messages.

The first was from his mother – even Operatives had mothers.

While it was common practise to kill all members of one's family on assuming the role of Operative - as it was deemed bad form for government assassins to have ties to something that might resurrect their conscience - sometimes it simply wasn't worth the bother. The Operative, after the clusterfuck that was Miranda, had come to the conclusion that had he killed his mother she would have devoted her afterlife to making him miserable; more miserable, that is, as Miranda – and its subsequent shattering of anything that may have posed as an illusion – had made him the poster child for clinical depression.

It was probably fortunate that he hadn't been working for the US Postal Service.

The second message was from his, sole remaining, contact in the Alliance Security and Intelligence Service. It was an update on the previous warning, which had noted that the infamous 'Blue Hands' were coming to Bellerophon. While the overall breadth of information was not great, and the depth of detail was more opaque than illuminating, his friend had been able to expand on some things. Specifically, the Blue hands were coming to retrieve something which they considered 'theirs' and, at the same time, deal with the thief who had taken said 'property'. The Blue Hands were also explicitly instructed to avoid doom at all costs, which, to the Operative, seemed like a fairly reasonable instruction: charging to meet your doom was the sort of things that only idiots and martyrs did.

Well, idiots, martyrs and Malcolm Reynolds.

On further consideration: idiots, martyrs, Malcolm Reynolds and … himself.

It was a sobering thought.

Whilst a fairly infrequent event, the hunt for new clothes was one that was, oft-times, dictated by necessity; after all, working on a ship like Serenity, in both mercenary and non-mercenary capacities, tended to play hell with one's wardrobe.

While it was true that blood came out in the wash – especially if one had access to whore-quality detergents, which got your whites whiter than the pearlescent gates of the heavenly kingdom - it wasn't quite as easy to bleach a bullet hole out of your favourite duster … or shirt … or trousers … and, as the majority of the thread on the ship went towards patching the crew - and not just their clothes – the appearance of any-and-all clothing often approached a truly parlous state; especially in the case of the more martially-inclined members of the crew who attract bullets in much the same way that candles attracted moths.

Of course, Jayne drew more fire than most simply because he was usually, with all due respect to martial Zoe's prowess, identified as the most dangerous of the group. Cobb was prepared to freely admit that River was probably more dangerous than he in a hand-to-hand situation but he was heard to note that the types of folk who tended to favour shooting were usually quite happy to do so from a distance; the sort of distance where hand-to-hand expertise was largely ineffective. This was perfectly understandable. Having someone walk up to you, insert the barrel of a gun in your left nostril and threaten to fire; largely negated the primary advantage the weapon offered.

Also, while River was supremely skilled with a knife, you could only throw a knife *so* far before important principles like gravity and the effect of mass over velocity (where propulsion was not constant and/or ongoing) had to be acknowledged; and River, for all her innate skill and technical training, weighed less than a waterlogged moth and thus could only generate a finite amount of power.

Of the others: Zoe's reputation was well-enough established throughout the black for people to be perfectly content with attempting to turn her into a colander from a distance, whereas the captain, while freely acknowledged that he, too, was a fair hand with a gun, tended to draw shooting folk's attention on the general principle that he aggravated such simply by existing; certainly, the ongoing litany of smug soliloquys on his manifest moral superiority tended to override any initial impulse anyone might have had not to take up arms against him.

Mal never had learnt when to shut up.

The others usually got shot as a by-product of the actions of those three.

Admittedly, people tended not to shoot at Wash, because that upset Zoe, which was generally considered to be a spectacularly bad idea; and people tended not to shoot Inara because shooting Companions was just considered an invitation to ritual suicide by social exclusion: if the Companion Guild had been around when Coleridge had written the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, there wouldn't have been any need for that damn albatross (although this did get Jayne to wondering just how Inara would have hovered of the stern of the mariner's boat; probably on a hoverboard, which had been invented just before the exodus from the earth-that-Was). Jayne was quite partial to idea of having a companion nailed to the bow of every ship instead of a carved figure; although he doubted even that would do much to remove the average companion's head from their arse or their nose from the air.

Other than the inevitable by-products of his physical endeavours, the secondary consideration in Jayne's hunt for a quality of garment that bespoke a man of, well… whatever he currently was, was that he now had an alternate career to consider. Headmaster Doom, in one of his tangential asides, had indicated to Jayne that while he, Doom, was personally indifferent to the (former) mercenary's choice of wardrobe, the dictates laid down by the school's Board of Directors was not large on anything that could be identified as optional, discretionary or casual.

So, today, Jayne was in search of clothes that, in his opinion, made him resemble a constipated penguin; a constipated penguin that had become horrifically out-of-touch with the latest trends in penguin fashion.

Jayne could handle the dress trousers. Pants were, when you got down to it, pants and no matter the quality of the cloth, and the level of prestidigitation that was involved in the needle work they still went on one foot at a time. (Jayne had tried the two-foot-jump-into-trousers approach on one occasion; an occasion that called for a rapid retreat from a married lady's bedroom upon the, unanticipated, arrival of her husband; but all that approach to trouser application had achieved was a concussion). He also didn't have a problem with black – even if it did make him look like an undertaker - especially when combined with the starched, high-collared white shirt and the (black), long-styled double-breasted blazer he was required to wear.

Jayne's predominant area of issue was the tie, which, as far as he was concerned, reminded one far too much of a hanging than was seemly.

He wasn't a big fan of hanging, least of all when it was he who was the designated guest of honour at the ostensible proceedings – as had been the case on one or two occasions. Fortunately, in addition to shooting with extreme accuracy and his retention of advanced martial skills in psychopathic brutality (when required), Cobb also retained preternatural skills in running for the hills, hiding in caves and, where occasion called for it, stowing away on ships heading in the other direction.

Anyway, it was all a misunderstanding.

Both times.

Why couldn't everyone just get along?

Cobb was distracted from his reminiscences about ropes, trees and unfortunate drops when he arrived at, what was, allegedly, Bellerophon's fashion quarter – it was probably more like a fashion three-sixteenths or seven-thirty seconds, but to quibble would be churlish.

Anyway, he wasn't after the latest in core fashion, which, if Inara was to be believed, would have resulted in Jayne looking like an escapee from a Morris Dancing mardi gras; even the sly folks Jayne knew had standards, and nothing in those standards indicated that dressing in such a way that the wearer resembled a psychedelic hat-stand in any way made one appear fashionable.

Admittedly, the sly folk Jayne knew were all mercenaries of one stripe or another and their acquaintance with fashion was generally was comprised of providing protection detail for some idiot designer who must simply (and here Jayne imagined the outrageous lisp his friend Coraline had donned) 'protect the fall line at all costs …dahling'. He smiled in memory; Coraline had been more dyke than the entirety of Holland on Earth-that-Was and the lisping nightmare she had been mimicking had been the worst serial womaniser in the 'verse. It was a real pity that Coraline was currently enjoying an extended period of hospitality with the Alliance; apparently, the lisping nightmare hadn't appreciated being told 'No', with the butt-end of Coraline's pistol, when he had decided that his 'pet' mercenary needed 'converting.

Money and power overrode claims of 'rape', every time – especially from a no-account mercenary.

Unfortunately (for the designer) money and power didn't override high-velocity bullets delivered by an expert and this time it wasn't his teeth that were being scraped off the floor.

The small row of shops that made up the fashion quarter appeared, if nothing else, utilitarian – that is, they retained all their doors and the windows appeared intact. Jayne smiled at his exaggeration, for all its distance from the Core, Bellerophon was extremely civilised and bore little resemblance to the dystopic chain-store hell that was the Rim. Casting a discerning (well, literate …) eye across the store frontages, Jayne chose to enter a modest looking enterprise that advertised itself as servicing the 'Needs of the Discerning Gentleman'; in a past life, Cobb would have assumed that the use of such nomenclature would have indicated the presence of high-class prostitutes, but he decided to take the locality and context into account and entered anyway.

Clearly, there was something to be said for operating from the basis of logical interpretation and context for there was nary a courtesan in sight; there was, however, a significant amount of men's clothing, in a wide range of black: Doom would have felt right at home, as would a murder of ravens and a collection of undertakers.

Jayne paused to consider the collective noun for undertakers; he was fairly certain that is was something like an 'unction', which retained a decidedly religious connotation; something to do with catholic priests and oils and blessing and the like - he was fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with choir boys. Unction, however, was decidedly esoteric, and certainly dull, and if ever a group needed enlivening it was undertakers. Further consideration on the subject, however, was interrupted by a light touch on his shoulder.

"Mister Cobb?"

If he was surprised at being approached by name in a clothing store, Jayne was further surprised – if not alarmed - at the source of said approach, a source that was known to him; and one that still caused him to wince reflexively.

"Miss Evans, how pleasant to see you again."

Amédée Evans regarded the man in front of her appraisingly, her lips quirking in amusement, "Perhaps you should try that again, Mister Cobb, if only to convince yourself."

Cobb indicated the touch with a slight smile, "Not at all, Miss Evans, it is indeed pleasant to see you; admittedly, I generally define pleasant in terms of 'someone who is not currently shooting at me', but that doesn't mean I am unable to administer a degree of contextual flexibility," he paused and smiled wryly, "You're also not shooting at me."

"Currently."

"Indeed. … Currently."

Miss Evans smiled, "It's nice to see that your grasp of the obvious remains undiminished."

Jayne sketched an ironic bow, "I've always thought that the ability to see what was right in front of you was, generally speaking, positive in nature and, in consideration of my former position, determining whether someone was planning on shooting at me has, over the years, proven to be somewhat useful."

"The lack of holes would indicate the value of such perception."

"Although, we could also infer that the vast majority of people can't shoot straight."

This latter observation was, in fact, true; at least under certain circumstances. Shooting straight was, while a learnable skill, something that was spectacularly situation specific. It was one thing to be able to make use of a weapon in the service of hunting down one's lunch; it was another thing entirely to retain said skillset when staring down a person, one just as likely to be armed. It was, Jayne considered, why there were, in actuality, very few of what he would call, 'true' mercenaries: most people simply didn't have the mind-set to be able to kill, let alone do so in cold blood. The truth of things was, if truth could be broken down through statistical analysis and sound research methodology, that the majority of those who claimed to be 'mercenaries' were simply people who had taken to the life as they saw no option before them but being a hired gun; be it through unfortunate circumstance or stillborn scholastic ability resulting in a severe limitation in potential employment options. Most had no training and, if actually confronted with violence, ended up dead. There were cemeteries the 'verse over filled with people who couldn't get the job done when faced with the business end of reality.

Jayne had placed a fair few of them in there himself.

He felt no remorse.

While it might be trite to wheel out clichés, pertaining to things like the legal code and its operation in patches of overgrown vegetation, clichés were clichés for good reason in that they were, statistically speaking, accurate and true representations of how things worked. Hegel had said that 'Those who failed to learn from history were doomed to repeat it,' to which a wit had added the corollary that 'Hegel must have been taking the long view', as the wit knew people who couldn't learn from yesterday. Long view, or short view, the failure to learn usually had one result - one indicated with a hole in the ground and a couple if sticks bound together – if someone cared enough to bother to tie a couple of sticks together, that is.

Jayne was, for this reason, strongly in favour of learning, and paying attention, which jerked him from his considerations and back to the woman standing in front of him

Evans smirked, "Pity."

"…That people can't shoot straight? I'm wounded," Jayne noted; then made a show of inspecting himself, "…Or not."

"Oh, I don't mean you, Mister Cobb, it would be most inconvenient if someone had shot you; after all, who would teach my daughter?"

"I'm sure Headmaster Doom would have found someone adequate or, if not adequate, then temporarily blackmailable," he is a most capable individual."

"Absolutely," Evans agreed, "But I doubt very much that any other teacher could provide a pedagogical repertoire quite like yours. For example," she continued before Jayne could interrupt, "How to loom menacingly or, how to deliver a potential terminal threat with the appropriate degree of _savoir faire _and, not only that, Mister Cobb, you deliver it in an age-appropriate fashion - something that is so important within the modern educational environment. Further, if you'll allow me to wax eloquent for a second, you provide a degree of positive role-modelling quite unlike any teacher the children have previously experienced. Just the other day I was talking to Lucretia Byron's parents and they are positively delighted to observe that their daughter appears to be headed in the direction of becoming a planetary dictator and not a mass murderer, they put that down to your influence Mister Cobb."

"I'm delighted…" replied Jayne, "At least I think I'm delighted, I might have to get back to you on that."

"No, it's a wonderful thing. Lucretia, dear child that she is, has been making wicker-men out of her brother's action figures since she could walk – which, admittedly is somewhat of a relief insofar as she could have been making wicker-men out of her crèche-mates – the Board of Governors of her pre-school were actively concerned about her future.

Now it was Jayne's turn to smirk, "You mean the Board of Governors were terrified at the thought of how many people she would slaughter on her way to the wherever she decided would give her absolute power over the universe."

"Well … yeeesss … but she was only five at the time."

Jayne shrugged; he was well used to the various idiosyncrasies of his students – in another time and another place he would have been called 'warden' and not 'teacher' and the classroom would have been little better than a euphemism for a psychiatric ward.

Amédée Evans regarded Cobb with a knowing expression, "I am well aware, Mister Cobb, just how different those children are and that their differences become even more apparent when you remove them from their peers. Put one of those children amongst a group of any other children at that school and they stick out like a sore thumb, amongst themselves they only seem to evidence strong individual traits. Take Lucretia, since we were talking about her, the child borders the line between charismatic leader and psychopath; who knows which way she will go? What I do know is that in that class, amongst people like her, she is a leader; amongst others, well… " she hesitated, before Jayne smoothly interjected …

"... Amongst others, she is an outcast and she sees them as little more than chaff, chaff to be used and discarded; they're beneath her notice." Jayne glanced at his watch, "As much as I'd love to spend time discussing the merits and individual foibles of my students, Miss Evans; and by 'love' I mean that next time you should probably bring some restraints and a hot poker, I find myself in the unfortunate position of needing to be in several different places at the same time, which is a trick I have yet to master – although my previous employer has offered, on occasion, to have me torn apart by wild horses so I might get there yet."

"I am sorry, Mister Cobb," Evans apologised, "While it was pleasant to see you I had no intention of waylaying you from your primary task, which I assume was the purchase of some clothes? How about you provide me with a list of your requirements, your pertinent measurements and any stylistic inclinations you may have and I'll have the finished articles sent to your place of residence; which, I am led to believe, is still that near-derelict Firefly parked on the edge of the desert."

"That is most generous, Miss Evans, but I wouldn't wish to put you to any trouble, simply as the result of a chance encounter."

"It's no trouble at all, Mister Cobb, especially in light of the fact that I own this store and can send bespoke clothes to whomever I choose, wherever they might be, whenever I so choose." Amédée Evans gave Cobb a considering look, "Unless of course said person was planning on relocating to the edge of Reaver space; that might necessitate a degree of reconsideration."

"You own this store? I thought, at least inasmuch as I was able to decipher Doom's introduction, that you were the holder of more qualifications than God; so I have to enquire what are you doing with, and by with I mean owning and running, a clothing store."

Evans gave the man an arch look, "I have many fingers in many pies, Mister Cobb, why don't I explain it to you … over dinner … sometime."


	22. The Shakespeare Chapter

_OK – try not to go into shock or anything, but yes, this IS a new chapter, and no, it hasn't taken me upwards of six months to produce. Actually, it would have got here a lot more quickly than it did, except the original idea developed a life of its own and thus, what was supposed to be a pithy little chapter filled with repartee and insult became a treatise filled with scholarship, reflection and a good deal of character assassination … sorry about that._

_I kinda lost track of things too… so best of luck trying to follow anything that might resemble a narrative track in this chapter. I __have__ put a lot of beta-ing into this chapter, in order to smooth things out, so I do hope it is coherent _

_I'd like to apologise, as always, to William Shakespeare, Sophocles, God (in the authorial sense, that is; as a secular humanist I'm patently not going to apologise to the guy on the cloud),_

_Homer (if he actually existed), Sir Thomas Mallory – at least it was his translation/ codification of Arthurian legend I pillage … I patently refuse to apologise about anything to do with Twilight …vampires that sparkle… sparkle my backside. _

_The song lyrics quoted are from The Mission (UK )'s - 'Sleeping Dogs Lie' – although when they did this they were simply The Mission._

_I'd like to thank those people who have recently added my story to their favourites, or have indicated that they are now following this … thanks … or God help you, I can never remember which. I'd like some reviews though … in paert this chapter was produced so quickly because I acknowledge that I spent too long on the last couple …so share the love and I'll get to work on the next chapter. (I will note though, that I am finally starting my first original work of fiction… I waited until the Mayan apocalypse was over before starting)._

_Seriously, thanks for reading, reviewing, and all that jazz._

* * *

_[Shakespeare's] adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower and __Rymer__ think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and __Voltaire__ censures his kings as not completely royal. ... These are the petty cavils of petty minds. _**Samuel Johnson: **_**The Plays of William Shakespeare 1765**_

_They say rather than cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. They don't mention anything about cursing a lack of candles_. **George Carlin**

_ My hair's got a life of its own. Last week I found it in the kitchen, making an omelette. _**Paul Merton**

* * *

Jayne Cobb smiled.

It was a malicious smile, a vindictive smile; the sort of smile smiled by teachers when they know that what they're about to spring on their (unsuspecting) students will cause lamentation (along with the tearing of clothes and the pulling out of hair) and despair.

It was time for the students to learn about Shakespeare.

In the grand scheme of things, Jayne's acquaintance with 'The Bard' hearkened back to when he had found a volume of the collected works jammed between one of the deck plates and a wall of Serenity's galley and thus, in a strict chronological sense, accounted for little more than a year of 'real' time; subjectively Jayne walked, breathed and lived Shakespeare – it also didn't hurt that he was surrounded by the 'verse's incarnation of an ongoing Shakespearean tragedy. River was, if anything, madder than Ophelia – although, to be fair to Ophelia, she couldn't really compete insofar as she hadn't had the benefit of the Danish medical establishment using her brain to practise their macramé. Wash, on occasion, appeared to be channelling Lear's fool - tending, as he did, to hide his wisdom behind a mask of self-deprecating humour and, although he lacked the vituperative edge that characterised so many of the Fool's cautionary urgings, he did have dinosaurs.

Book, on the other hand, was clearly playing Prospero to the hilt and whilst Jayne wasn't entirely too certain as to what it was that Book had given up, what Jayne was certain of was that if Book didn't stop with the martyred intimations of a dark and mysterious past (that he had to atone for) then Jayne was going to permanently recast him as the ghost from Hamlet; either that or as a permanent stunt double for Yorick.

If there was an almighty, and Jayne had his doubts, then he wanted to sit down and have an extended, and decidedly pointed, conversation with the putative deity about their casting choices. Jayne was prepared to accept that he was, potentially, riding shotgun on some sort of perverse celestial joke; but be it joke or tragedy, someone (or thing) had some explaining to do. Malcolm Reynolds, for example – to extend the previous Shakespearean analogy - combined the nobility of Othello with the paranoia of Hamlet and the narcissism of Lear, which made for compelling, if slightly schizophrenic, viewing, especially when Mal was on his high and holding forth in the manner of a demagogue horse (, for that matter, Jayne, kibitzing in on his own imagery, thought he probably should have added in Richard the III to his analogy for good measure).

Less charitably (he was honest enough to admit, albeit honesty stained with the taint of sardonic amusement), he – and not some putative casting deity - was inclined to cast Inara as an accoutrement, bound – or perhaps tied – to the casting director's couch. It would be mete if Inara was cast in the role of Hamlet's mother, for she, too, was a whore and; just like every Companion worth their salt steeped in a tradition of manipulation, conniving and the use of sexual wiles to enslave and dominate.

Jayne shuddered at the idea of having Inara for a mother; much as, he imagined, Hamlet shuddered at having to bring his friends home to Castle Elsinor after school.

A particularly lurid example of the Queen's womanly wiles was the true (but little-known) fate of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. Whilst common conception held that Hamlet had sent the treacherous pair to the _de-facto _executioner's blade they had, years after the events described in Hamlet, been found bound to the wall in Queen Gertrude's private dungeon, their desiccated corpses naked save for a silencing ball-gag. After the Queen had taken poison there had been no one to know, first-hand, of their disposition and they had been consigned to memory, with only twisted imagination able to comprehend what possible tortures; or, mayhap, delights, that the wanton Queen had had in store for the two courtiers: well, a truly twisted imagination or the nearest Companion – they were synonyms as far as Jayne was concerned. That being said, Jayne wasn't going to cast aspersions at a person's sexual proclivities, he was hardly a paragon of knightly virtue himself and, having read the adventures of Lancelot and Guinevere, he'd made sure to studiously avoid falling victim to that particular set of delusions.

He smiled to himself. The truth of the matter was that taking potshots at Inara was akin to observing a time-honoured tradition, much in the fashion of not swinging at the first pitch in baseball, tossing salt over your shoulder if spilt (or running like the blue blazes if guys in blue gloves turned up on your doorstep planet). In short, if you didn't acknowledge the perversity of the universe in your everyday actions then the fates would be displeased and wreak their revenge - which was all a bit melodramatic when you actually thought about it; true, but melodramatic nonetheless.

There was, however, always room for melodrama. Shakespeare was a fan, just look at Romeo and Juliet: a tale of two clueless, self-absorbed teenagers (Cobb paused for a second, fairly certain he'd just tautologised his monologue), mooning over something that, even expressed in an incredibly sympathetic light, was (probably) spectacularly inadvisable. Of course, being teenagers, they ignored common sense, wisdom, political pragmatism (and the blindingly obvious) and fucked things up for everyone – they also ended up dead; clearly not a win-win outcome. From a mercenary's perspective, the end result demonstrated a spectacular lack of situational awareness, planning and anything that resembled a secure fall-back position; apparently these sound principles that formed the basis of pretty much any military operation were replaced with a planning process that went something along the lines of: 'trust a half-crazed priest and an overly-sentimental old woman and, when all else failed break out the poison and the knives' – outstanding! Clearly Shakespeare wasn't in receipt of competent strategic advice; where was Machiavelli when you needed him. Jayne quickly banished that thought, the last thing a retroactively redrawn posterity needed was Machiavelli advising Shakespeare (or vice-versa).

In all fairness, Jayne was prepared to admit that temptation in-and-of-itself was never a bad thing (half of the classical canon would have collapsed in on itself if temptation had been taken off the table), but temptation that led to melodrama was all bad; look at Oedipus and the colossal fuck-up that befell Corinth. If Oedipus had simply shrugged and moved on after killing his father and bedding his mother (all unwitting), then things could have worked out fine; but no, out came the melodrama and what started as an innocent mistake turned into a colossal nightmare (and that was just for students of Sophocles).

Closer to home, YoSafBridge was a ball of temptation, and melodrama (not only) followed her around but appeared to dog slavishly at her heels in a manner most sycophantic and totally lacking in anything resembling a dignity (a bit like Simon chasing after Kaylee; although Simon was so all-fired on being dignified and proper that it wasn't so much temptation as a good bashing over the head with the blindingly obvious that got him trailing along behind the red-haired mechanic) and that had ended badly.

Well, relatively badly.

Mal had ended up naked, which balanced out on the not-bad side of the ledger: it also weighed fairly heavily on the 'horror' and 'keep the children indoors' side of the ledger. It also provided Reynolds' testicles a measure of (probable) relief insofar as the poor creatures probably thought they'd be constrained, like a corseted Victorian spinster, in the man's overly-tight trousers for eternity (oh… the inhumanity). The crew also stood to make a fortune off the Lassiter – if they ever found someone stupid enough to buy it; Inara had been circumspectly sleeping her way through a list of potential options.

Taking another moment to (mentally) digress from the trainwreck that was Romeo and Juliet, Jayne considered the literary history of melodrama and decided that, in the grand scheme of things, YoSafBridge was an amateur.

Simply thinking about the nightmare that was intrinsic to the core of the Iliad bought him out in a rash; but even that spectacular example of: 'How Things Go Wrong When You Think With Your Genitals', barely scratched the surface of his favourite piece of melodrama which, when the Shepherd was in hearing distance, was titled: 'Why things go wrong when you start thinking that snakes can talk', (when Inara was in range he generally changed the title to 'Why things go wrong when you start listening to a woman who thinks snakes can talk'). However, after the last time, when Inara threatened to shoot him, and the Shepherd had delivered – yet another - lecture on 'That Special Hell', Jayne decided that the inane (and terminally boring) perorations on his moral failings simply weren't worth the long-term damage to his hearing, his carefully stored reserve of patience – or his dwindling supply of explosive rounds.

Frankly, he had barely enough patience dealing with everyone else's melodrama without recourse to creating his own.

After his discovery of the book, Jayne had devoted himself to studying Shakespeare, with an almost hermetic diligence. Not only did he read the plays, which he had to the point where he even liked Coriolanus and Two Gentlemen of Verona (and even King John), but he also spent large parts of every night (at least those when he was on the graveyard shift) firing up the ship's connection to the cortex in order to read every piece of scholarship he could find on the subject; there had been quite a bit written in the past thousand years, so he was kept relatively busy; where 'busy' was sometimes defined by as the degree to which one would shout at the cortex screen when one disagreed with what one was reading.

Despite – or, perhaps in spite of – the shouting, Jayne kept his studious activities quiet, simply because he couldn't be bothered with the aggravation of having to explain the whole thing – especially to Mal, who clutched his suspicion of all things different to his breast with a grasp tighter than he wore his trousers. Jayne shuddered mentally at the thought of having to answer questions as to who Shakespeare was, why he was important, and what his plays meant. Thereafter, and in order to provide a coherent context to the answers given to the previous questions he knew that he would, inevitably, also have to explain the history behind the stories, the plagiarism of the various thematic, dramatic and historical archetypes and, then, why the blatant historical plagiarism was superseded by the plays' contribution to the development of language, narrative construction, social commentary, and ultimately, understanding of the human condition _et cetera, and-so-on-and-so-forth ad infinitum_. On the bright side, Jayne reckoned he could cover everything, to a relatively facile degree - one that would satisfy the crew - in … say … five years. …

… Less, if could stop Wash from asking about Shakespeare and dinosaurs…

…more if he couldn't scuttle Mal's inevitable assumption that Shakespeare was, in reality, some sort of Alliance machination designed to undermine the manufacture of brown coats.

It was no wonder that his preference was for privacy.

* * *

Inevitably, the one spanner in his wish for privacy was River; keeping secrets from River was akin to putting a screen door on a submarine. Jayne, however, had come to the conclusion that the simplest way to deal with River was to treat her like a sane, functional adult – admittedly, a somewhat novel exercise on Serenity where the behavioural norm tended towards treating her like a brain-damaged puppy instead of the petulant and juvenile psychopath that she was. True, it wasn't the girl's fault she was madder than a bag of hammers, but that didn't excuse the crew for letting her play them like a Charlie Daniels number, or the girl for doing it; she was, after all, insane, not stupid. River hated being treated like a normal person as it severely disrupted her self-ascribed notions of tortured genius-hood and intellectually superior posturing. Not for a second would Jayne deny that the girl had been put through every emotional, physical and spiritual wringer one could imagine but he wasn't prepared to humour the girl when it was patently obvious that while the past was what it was, River was playing it for all it was worth in order to subtly (well, subtle by her standards – and if you weren't looking for it) manipulate all those around her in order to get what she wanted; whatever the hell that was – it could have been, for all Jayne could figure, the total annihilation of the Alliance … or, a purple-striped disappearing cat., or something in between … or both …or neither … maybe.

Jayne had delivered River an ultimatum which, in essence was: 'shut up or I'll pull your little game out from under you', to which, River had, after resorting to the traditional threat to kill him with her mind, boldly stated that no one would believe him – secure in her construction of a 'poor me' world backed by the visceral experiences of Miranda. There could be no misunderstanding as to the manipulative base of the girl's actions and, in response; Jayne had demonstrated that he was just as adept at blackmail as he was at killing. River might have been smarter than Jayne, but she was, in many ways, hopelessly naïve.

There was also the fact that there was, despite her repeated threats, certain things that River would not do. Such prohibitions did not apply to Jayne.

So, River had shut up and Jayne had continued with his studies – the resultant silence had allowed him to study and thence to think – thinking was never a good thing, it led to questions and questions led to rabbit holes.

Firstly, if he ever happened to stumble upon a time machine, his first order of business would be to travel back to the Earth-that-was and stick a long (and exceptionally blunt) knife into the intestinal regions of those responsible for the intimation that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. Apparently, Bacon wrote Shakespeare; which if the preeminent powers of bacon were to be believed, meant that a preserved meat could add genius-level authorship to its list of achievements. Whilst fairly fond of bacon, Jayne hated conspiracy theories, which, to his mind, were normally contrived by those too scared, by the concept of an uncontrollable (by them) reality, to face the actual world. That didn't stop said theorists coming out of the woodwork on an alarmingly regular basis as they sought to impose their worldview on others; Jayne figured that mass hysteria, and a spectacular talent for self-delusion, loved company.

It also didn't help that a conspiracy theory could also be presented as the orthodoxy. Jayne chuckled at his cynicism, he was now conflating indoctrination with conspiracy theories – albeit they were incestuous cousins. Speaking of cousins, Jayne wondered how long it would take before Malcolm Reynolds was prepared to admit that the Operative was essentially his mirror image, save that he was an image that had broken free of the looking-glass that held his soul; Cobb allowed himself a moment of pensive reflection. While he freely admittedly that the Operative was not the best of men, he wondered if, and perhaps, when compassion overwhelmed sense, hoped, the man would ever find the path that allowed for the ultimate redemption of the forgiveness of self. …as the song said:

_There's the crime of passion_

_And the crime of revenge_

_But the worst crime of all_

_Is the crime of regret_

Jayne took a moment to centre himself – the introspection was giving him a headache.

While it was true that conspiracy theories were indeed the last refuge of the reality-challenged there was, oft-times something that could be identified as truth behind them; Miranda being a case in point. Mind you, the idea that the government was an overarchingly evil and manipulative body, hell-bent on the perpetual enslavement of its populace didn't really strike Jayne as something that qualified as a conspiracy theory; it sounded more like an election manifesto.

Yet to Jayne, it remained a truism that a conspiracy theory was, usually, the result of someone being too lazy to do the proper research, and that it became easier to invent imaginary psychedelic butterflies than to lay down concrete empirical foundations. The greater irony, of course was that, in the quest to support the web of imaginary, psychedelic butterflies, the conspiracy theorist become ever more entangled in a matrix of complex justification, rationalisation and, in many cases outright fantasy and thus, inevitably, found themselves doing ten times as much work to support their fantasy than if they had simply checked their facts or actually questioned the initial proposition with something resembling critical thinking, if not scepticism. It was probably just as well, Jayne considered, that Shakespeare wasn't a conspiracy theorist otherwise the tenuous fabric of reality would have warped as it struggled to process his stories.

This wasn't to suggest that questioning was a bad thing – unless your name was Malcolm Reynolds, then questioning became a synonym for pin the tail on the inherently evil bureaucratic monolith. It was also not to suggest that having an open mind was a bad thing . It was just that there was a significant difference between having an open mind and a gaping hole in the back of one's skull; as Jayne's mother had been fond of saying,: 'there's nothing more terrifying than a man for whom the light in their eyes is coming in through the hole in the back of their head'.

When he'd finished filleting the anti-Shakespeare brigade, Jayne considered that he'd then travel further back in time to shake the Bard's hand (for the glory of some of his writing) before beating him over the head with the nearest available actor for the stupidity some of his creations displayed. While Jayne was prepared to concede that dramatic license was all well, good and necessary in literature but that there had to be some sort of limit, a moment for reflection, a reflective process that noted: 'Character X is too stupid to live'. Seriously … some of these 'people', these creations of the greatest English writer of all time, were too stupid to live, even on paper. If said creations had been born in Sparta the Spartans wouldn't have wasted time leaving them out overnight, they would have simply dropped them down a well and tried again. Futhermore, not only were these creations too stupid to live, but they infested places of power in much the same way that a bubonic plague riddled flea infested a rat to the extent where the rest of the population was osmotically infected with their stupidity. It was a complete mystery, to Jayne, as to why entire social orders didn't collapse under the weight of the collective retardation.

Jayne was looking forward to discussing the concept of collective retardation with his class.

* * *

Preparing to enter the classroom, Jayne progress was arrested by Headmaster Doom, who, catching sight of Cobb, hurried down the hallway to intercept him. Doom's progress was itself arrested as he paused to take in Cobb's sartorial magnificence, dressed as he was in his new raiment; which had been hand-delivered to the ship the previous evening by an out-of-breath employee of Amédée Evans, who had – on her behalf - profusely apologised for the delay in the presentation of the bespoke garments. Said employee had started to deliver a lengthy discourse on the particular issues the firm had experienced in sourcing the correct fabric and it had taken all of Jayne's (supremely limited) patience and (and even more spectacularly limited) tact to chivvy the man out the door in a vertical, non-bullet-riddled, fashion. .

"Well, Mister Cobb, don't we look …," Doom took a moment to search for an appropriate descriptor, before settling on, to his mind, the wholly unsatisfactory "… Splendid."

"Well, at least I don't look fabulous."

Doom shook his head in an attempt to negate the image, "No, Mister Cobb, I can honestly say that the 'fabulous' is not a word that I, let alone anyone else, would ever use to describe you. One of the prerequisites for fabulousness is the ability to sparkle and, alas, sparkle you do not."

"What do you mean 'alas'? I would need to be some sort of failed excuse for a vampire in order to sparkle. Do I look like a failed vampire to you? For that matter do I even look like a successful vampire? … If there is such a thing … as a … successful … erm …vampire… ."

Doom regarded his staff member with a momentarily bemused expression before mentally shrugging it off as one of those weirdly esoteric comments that Cobb was wont to insert into his conversations on a semi-regular basis.

"Quite true, Mister Cobb, quite true, although you'll have to forgive me for retaining a fairly limited knowledge of the various typologies of vampire, I am more than willing, however, to accept, at your word, that vampires, at least, 'successful' vampires, don't sparkle. Actually, that segues alarmingly well into the matter for which I was seeking you out, apparently, and I'm absolutely certain what I am hearing are rumours , members of the senior classes are given to believe that you physically threatened some of the members of your class."

Now it was Cobb's turn to look bemused, albeit it was bemusement tainted with a measure of exasperation.

"I am wounded, Sir, wounded and by 'wounded' I mean that the accusation is complete and utter bollocks, but as we are in a place of education I'll limit my level of remonstrance and disconcertion to merely reiterating that I am wounded. I haven't physically threatened any of my class – if you'll remember, the terms of my contract here explicitly stipulated that I was not to bring weapons onto the school grounds."

Doom regarded the younger man with an arch expression, "…And I believe you contravened this stipulation within, what was it…" Doom glanced at the ceiling in an attempt to prompt his recollection, "…three days, I believe?"

Jayme had the grace to look slightly abashed, "One, actually; you only caught me after three days – and that was only after I found out, from Reynolds, that I was, allegedly here – allegedly, I might add, since no one will confirm anything with me - on protection detail; how am I supposed to protect anyone without my weapons?"

Doom made move to comment, but before he could draw breath, Jayne continued.

"However, that being said, I repeat, I have not physically threatened a single member of my class; although god alone knows some of them deserve it. Bloody Corvus would make a saint raise a fist. Actually, Corvus would ensure that a saint would have the US Postal Service initiating another recruiting drive … and don't even get me started on the lovely Miss Byron … although I'll note," he continued, "That Miss Byron is more of a threat to my class than I am."

"That's good to hear, Mister Cobb, I am glad to find that my faith in you is justified." Doom turned to leave, "…And, Mister Cobb…?" he continued,

"Yes, Sir?"

"… Be grateful that I only inquired as to whether you had 'physically' threatened your class…," there was a subtle stress on the word 'physically'.

Before Cobb could respond, and as he was doing a remarkable impression of a stunned halibut no immediate response was forthcoming, Doom had headed off in the direction from whence he had come, although a softly spoken comment floated by on the breeze…

"Buttered children on toast for breakfast … really Mister Cobb … how unoriginal…."

Jayne made a note to have his classroom swept for bugs after he finished not threatening his students, that is – after all, it was time for Shakespeare.


End file.
